Blue Planet Aquarium
Sharks over a moving walkway tunnel, all under cover. A dependable answer to a washout forecast that still feels like a proper day out.
Hooton Park Hangars
Ellesmere Port, Cheshire
Hooton Park was an aerodrome from 1917 and three of the original Belfast truss hangars are still standing, which puts them among the oldest surviving First World War hangars in the country.
A volunteer trust runs them as a museum, and the contents are a magpie collection and not a curated narrative: aircraft, military vehicles, engines, a Chester tram, vintage bicycles, radio gear, a printing museum, and cockpits children can get into.
Admission is £9 for adults and £7 for five to sixteens, with a family ticket at £22 for two adults and up to three children. Under-fives are free. Parking is free. Heritage Open Days are free altogether, though the dates for those get announced separately.
The important detail is which day you pick. Saturdays from 11 April run 10am to 4pm but with no tea room, no shuttle bus and no air raid experience. The last Sunday of each month from 26 April gets all three, including a vintage bus that runs every half hour from Hooton station for £1.30 a day. Same price, considerably more day.
Know before you go
- Sunday beats Saturday by a distance. The tea room, the air raid experience and the vintage bus from Hooton station only run on the last-Sunday openings.
- It is open days only, roughly April to the end of October. Turn up on a random Tuesday in February and you get a locked gate.
- Last admission is 3pm for a 4pm close, so an afternoon start is tight.
- The hangars are unheated. Coats in spring and autumn, and that is not a suggestion.
Worth knowing: Under-fives go free but the appeal is aircraft and engines, which lands better from about six.
Seasonal: Open days only, April to end of October. Check before travelling.
Looking for more museums & science near Ellesmere Port?
Also in Ellesmere Port
National Waterways Museum
A real working dock kept as a museum: historic narrowboats, locks, indoor galleries, boat trips and a waterways playground. Under 6s free, and the annual pass costs less than two visits.
Whitby Park
Ellesmere Port's main park: two play areas, a skatepark, tennis courts, formal gardens and a fish pond, with Theatre Porto in the old hall. Free, with free parking off Stanney Lane.
Ellesmere Port Sports Village
Ellesmere Port's biggest leisure centre: two pools, a cafe, parking on site, and a day that runs from half six in the morning until ten at night on weekdays. Under-threes swim for £2.
Rivacre Valley Local Nature Reserve
184 acres of wooded valley and brook a minute off junction 7 of the M53, and the traffic noise is gone two hundred metres in. Paths, picnic meadows, a permanent orienteering course, bluebells in spring.