Birkenhead Priory & St Mary's Tower
The oldest standing building on Merseyside, a twelfth century monastery hemmed in by the Cammell Laird shipyard. Ruined cloisters, a chapter house, and a tower you can climb for a view over the yard.
Museums & science Wirral
Museums & science in Wirral
Hands-on museums and science centres. Several of the best ones are free.
5 in Wirral3 free4 indoor4 suit under-5s
Only one of these five was built for children, and it is the hands-on science centre with the ferry stop outside the door. Eureka! Science + Discovery has walk-through lungs in the new Bodies gallery and turns your entry into an annual pass, and Port Sunlight Museum is the gentle history stop at about a fiver for children with under-fives free.
Two of the five are art galleries, and neither is aimed at children. The Williamson in Birkenhead is the workable one, all on a single level with a free car park and a cafe, while the Lady Lever at Port Sunlight is thirty rooms of paintings and Wedgwood and is really a quiet hour for the adults, and Birkenhead Priory, free as well, is the twelfth century one that lands better with a seven-year-old, ruined cloisters sitting improbably behind the Cammell Laird shipyard.
Museums & science in Wirral
Lady Lever Art Gallery
William Lever built it for his wife and filled it with what he liked: Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Napoleon memorabilia and the finest Wedgwood jasperware collection anywhere. Free, and the Chinese ceramics cases sit low so children can see in.
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum
Birkenhead's big 1920s civic gallery on Slatey Road: free at the door, no ticket, no booking, all on one level, with a free car park and a cafe. It shuts on Sundays.
Port Sunlight Museum
The story of the village Lever built for his soap workers, with a preserved worker's cottage on the same ticket and £2 trails to pull children round the prettiest streets on Merseyside. A gentle history stop, not a rides day, and priced like it knows that.
Eureka! Science + Discovery
A hands-on science centre built precisely for this age group - walk-through lungs and a supersize brain in the new Bodies gallery, inventions to test, and the ferry stop is literally outside. Entry converts to an annual pass, which changes the maths entirely.
Museums & science elsewhere in the North West
World of Glass
Free, indoors and better than it sounds: interactive science aimed at younger children, glassblowing demos, a picnic area and a small playground outside.
World Museum, Liverpool
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.
Catalyst Science Centre
Hands-on science galleries and a glass rooftop observatory over the Mersey. Small, cheap, indoors and close.
Science and Industry Museum
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.
Manchester Museum
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.
National Football Museum
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.
What’s on near you, every Friday
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.