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.
Walker Art Gallery
Liverpool, Merseyside
One of the best fine-art collections in England outside London, and it costs nothing to walk in. The trick with children is Big Art for Little Artists, the ground-floor children's gallery aimed at the youngest visitors, with costumes, games, books and craft materials on a theme that changes regularly. It turns a gallery visit from an ordeal of not-touching into something a four year old asks to repeat.
Do Big Art while everyone is fresh, then take whatever appetite remains upstairs - the Victorian rooms are full of shipwrecks, battles and dogs, which is what primary-age taste in art actually is. Open 10am to 5pm; the cafe and toilets are on the ground floor. An hour of Big Art plus an hour of wandering is a solid free morning.
What it costs: Entry is free, including exhibitions. You only pay for the cafe and city-centre parking.
Know before you go
- Big Art for Little Artists runs timed entry slots through the morning and early afternoon - head there first and ask at the desk, then do the grown-up galleries after.
- It sits on William Brown Street next to World Museum and Central Library, so a rainy day can hop between all three without getting wet for more than a minute.
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Speke Hall
A Tudor hall with woodland walks, a maze and a natural play area in the grounds. Free if you have National Trust membership, and the indoor house is a good rain fallback.
Museum of Liverpool
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Merseyside Maritime Museum
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Calderstones Park
South Liverpool's favourite park: lake, playground, ancient trees and the Storybarn, The Reader's hands-on storytelling space in the old coach house. The neolithic Calder Stones are older than Stonehenge, which is a good fact to deploy.
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