Museums & science Liverpool
Hands-on museums and science centres. Several of the best ones are free.
Five of the seven are free, and that is not a rounding error, it is the whole reason a wet week in Liverpool costs almost nothing. World Museum has five floors covering dinosaurs, space and an aquarium in the basement. Museum of Liverpool has an overhead railway carriage to climb into. The Walker is far better with small children than a fine-art gallery has any right to be, and Central Library's spiral atrium is worth going in for even if you read nothing.
The two that charge are the two people travel for. The Beatles Story sits under the Albert Dock with an audio guide, and the Anfield tour takes you through the home dressing room and down the tunnel, and it sells out. Book that one weeks ahead or do not plan a day around it. One warning: the Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum are closed for redevelopment until 2028, so cross those off the wet-day list for now.
The spiral atrium is one of the most spectacular free interiors in the North West, the children's floor is genuinely brilliant, and the rooftop terrace looks across the city. Rainy-day Liverpool's best-kept non-secret, next door to World Museum.
The city's story with an overhead railway carriage to climb aboard and Little Liverpool, a dedicated hands-on gallery for under-6s. Free, on the waterfront, and the window views are half the fun.
The University of Liverpool's own gallery and museum, five minutes uphill from Lime Street, free and small enough to do properly in an hour. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Free, grand, and far better with small children than a fine-art gallery has any right to be, thanks to Big Art for Little Artists, a whole gallery where they are supposed to touch things.
Five floors, free, and it covers three things small children reliably love: giant dinosaurs, an aquarium and a space gallery. The best wet-weather day within half an hour.
The self-guided tour takes you through the home dressing room, down the tunnel past the This Is Anfield sign and out pitchside, with the club museum included. For a football-mad child it is a pilgrimage. For anyone else it is £72 for a family walk round a stadium.
Wall-to-wall Beatles under the Albert Dock, with an audio guide narrated by John Lennon's sister and a hands-on Discovery Zone at weekends. Brilliant if your kids know the songs, a long ninety minutes if they don't.
A hundred rooms of reinforced concrete under Exchange Flags, where the Battle of the Atlantic was run, left largely as it was. Children under 16 cost £1. Two floors of staircases, no lift, no pushchairs.
Closed until 2028. The Maritime and International Slavery Museums shut in early 2025 for a full redevelopment. The Albert Dock around them is still worth the walk, and the city's other national museums remain free and open.
Free, indoors and better than it sounds: interactive science aimed at younger children, glassblowing demos, a picnic area and a small playground outside.
Hands-on science galleries and a glass rooftop observatory over the Mersey. Small, cheap, indoors and close.
Working steam engines, the story of Cottonopolis, and hands-on galleries in the world's oldest surviving passenger railway station. Free, and the live demonstrations are the bit kids actually remember.
A T. rex skeleton cast, live frogs in the vivarium, Egyptian mummies and a genuinely good natural history floor. Free, university-run, and less overwhelming than the big London equivalents.
Shirts, trophies and match footage across six floors, with penalty shootout and skills games that football-mad kids refuse to leave. If yours do not care about football, skip it - it is exactly what it says.
War told through people's stories in a building designed to feel like a shattered globe. The hourly Big Picture Show projections fill the whole gallery and stop everyone mid-step. Heavy themes, handled well - better for the top end of primary.
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.