May Half Term at the Science and Industry Museum
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May Half Term at the Science and Industry Museum
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
The Science and Industry Museum sits on the site of Liverpool Road Station – the terminus of the world’s first purpose-built inter-city passenger line. Climb aboard the Museum’s miniature steam railway this May half term, and you’ll be doing something people did here for the very first time almost 200 years ago.
Running from 23 May to 7 June, the holiday programme makes a playground out of industrial heritage, with entry to the museum and most activities free throughout. The miniature railway threads circuits around the newly reopened Upper Yard (£4 a ride), while Manchester-based percussion group Drumroots translate the thumps, pulses and rhythms of the steam age into something you can join in with, with interactive sessions running throughout the first week.
Alongside those sessions, live demonstrations in the Power Hall – home to one of the UK’s largest collections of working steam engines – reveal the sights, smells and sounds of the engine-driven ideas born right here in Manchester. The final weekend brings members of the Urmston & District Model Engineering Society to the yard with a Fowler Showman’s traction engine and Foden steam wagon – both in steam, and both very much available for selfies.
Not everything runs on steam. The Planting Stories garden threads the site’s history through carefully chosen planting, with deckchairs and garden games – Quoits, Connect 4, Cornhole – spread across the yard. Daily sessions with the museum’s expert Explainers, meanwhile, explore the mechanics of motion through hands-on balancing challenges.
Beyond the free programme, two ticketed exhibitions pull in different directions. Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos – a world-premiere immersive journey through the Solar System – trades the same instinct for hands-on, participatory discovery, but points upwards rather than back. Power Up, the museum’s survey of gaming history across five decades and 150 consoles, is open during the first week and every weekend of the holiday and refreshed often enough to reward returning visitors.
The Grade I listed 1830 Station has spent the last few years undergoing essential repairs. Now attention turns to what comes next: a new visitor experience telling the story of the world’s first inter-city railway, timed to open ahead of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway’s bicentenary in 2030. What’s on offer this half term feels like the first instalment of that new ambition – industrial history as something to get your hands on.
