Days Out Archives - Neil Turner's Blog

Cromwell Bottom nature reserve

May 7, 2026 by Neil Turner

Last month, we had a nice, quiet Sunday afternoon strolling around Cromwell Bottom nature reserve. We’ve been a few times as it’s not far from us, and indeed it was one of the few places we could get out to during lockdown. However, it appears that this is the first time I have blogged about it.

History of Cromwell Bottom

There’s not much history online, but what is now the nature reserve was originally a quarry. Later, fly ash from Elland power station was dumped here, and then more recently it was used as a landfill site. In 2000, it was allowed to return to nature.

It’s a comparatively isolated site, being as it is squeezed in between the River Calder, the Calder and Hebble Navigation, and the lower section of the Calder Valley railway. As such, it has lent itself well to becoming a nature reserve, and is easily accessed from the canal towpath.

A coal tit and a great tit on a bird feeder at Cromwell Bottom nature reserve.

Different habitats

Different parts of Cromwell Bottom offer different habitats. There’s a large wooded area, mostly full of silver birch trees, but there’s also a meadow and some marshy wetland areas. As such, it’s possible to see quite a wide variety of wildlife.

Whilst Calderdale Council, the local authority, own and manage the nature reserve, there is an active volunteer organisation called Cromwell Bottom Wildlife Group. In particular, they look after an area of bird feeders, with a bird hide. We stopped there for around 20 minutes, and saw a number of different bird species. The largest was a hen pheasant, but we also saw chaffinches, robins, blue tits, coal tits, great tits and pigeons. On a previous visit, I also saw a nuthatch, and we heard a buzzard, confirmed by Merlin Bird ID.

Out on the river, I saw a heron and a goosander, the latter of which I don’t think I’ve previously seen before.

The Wildlife Group also publish several leaflets, with suggested walking routes around the site. You can download these as PDFs.

Accessibility

Most of the paths around the site are step-free, but there are some steep slopes. They are not paved and the ground can be uneven in places. There are gates on some of the paths which require a radar key to open for wheelchair access.

The Cromwell Bottom Wildlife Group runs a visitor centre, at the western end of the site just off the canal, and this includes disabled toilets. However, it’s operated by volunteers, and is only open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays between 10am and 4pm. The nearest Changing Places toilet is in Tesco in Brighouse.

Limited parking is available near the visitor centre. It’s on rough ground and often fills up. Buses stop on the main road – the E4 bus runs hourly between Elland and Brighouse on weekdays and every two hours on Saturdays. There’s no Sunday service, so if you need to get there by bus and may need the toilet, visit on a Tuesday or a Thursday.

If you’re reading this in 2029, then Elland railway station may be the closest, but as construction hasn’t started yet, Brighouse railway station is the closest. It’s then a sedate 45 minute walk along the canal towpath.

Nunnington Hall

May 3, 2026 by Neil Turner

On Easter Monday, we took advantage of the nice weather on Easter Monday to visit Nunnington Hall. Yes, I am aware it has taken me a month to get this published. I’ve been to Nunnington Hall before, but it was many, many years ago. Such that I don’t really remember it, and certainly didn’t have any photos of it.

History of Nunnington Hall

Nunnington Hall gets its name from the village of Nunnington, itself named after a nunnery that once stood in the village. There has been a hall in Nunnington since the 13th Century and in the 14th Century, it passed to the Grene family. In 1499, Maud Grene, the lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth of York (wife to King Henry VII) married Sir Thomas Parr, and so the property passed to him. He had a daughter, Catherine Parr, who followed in her mother’s footsteps by marrying Henry VII’s son, King Henry VIII. Catherine Parr was famously the last of Henry VIII’s six wives and outlived him.

In the 16th Century, the property passed to Catherine Parr’s brother, William, Marquess of Northampton. He started a trend of choosing the wrong side in royal conflicts, by favouring the succession of Lady Jane Grey over Mary Tudor. As such, he forfeited Nunnington Hall to the crown.

About a hundred years later, Ranald Graham bought Nunnington Hall for £9500 – around £2.5million in today’s money. He made many changes to the hall, which resulted in many of the historical features still seen today. Another member of the Graham family, Sir Richard Graham, was the second to get a bit of pickle with royalty, being a supporter of Catholic King James II when the Protestant William and Mary ascended to the throne. He was arrested, imprisoned, and only avoided the death penalty for high treason by being an informant for his accomplices. He was stripped of his land and titles and quietly retired to Nunnington Hall. The Graham family sold Nunnington Hall in 1839.

The buyers were the Rutson family, with whom it remained until 1952 when it was left to the National Trust. However, whilst the National Trust took ownership, family members remained living there as tenants until 1978, after which more rooms could be opened to the public.

The hall

Whilst much of the hall dates from Tudor times, it has been renovated several times over the years. Inside, it mostly appears as renovated in the 1920s in the Arts and Crafts style. This included the addition of indoor plumbing. Most of the hall is open to the public, including the main entertaining rooms and the bedrooms. The servants would have lived in the attic, and this has been opened up as an exhibition space. At present, it’s a series of nature pieces by a collective called Diverse Threads 2; later this month, you’ll be able to see entries from the British Wildlife Photography Awards.

Nunnington Hall is also home to the Carlisle Collection of miniature rooms. These are essentially small rooms, like those in a doll house, but not part of an overall house. Some are very intricate – there’s one of a music shop, where each miniature instrument can be played.

The gardens

Nunnington Hall’s gardens are modest; you can walk around the entirety in about half an hour. The National Trust switched to organic gardening at Nunnington Hall in 2002.

They are laid out mostly as they would have been in the 17th Century, with some nods to its 20th Century heyday. This includes a kitchen garden, and a new iris garden that was added last year. There is also a children’s play area, hidden away in the trees.

The house sits next to the River Rye, which gives its name to Ryedale which was the former name of the district council until it was abolished in 2023. Apparently, wild otters have been spotted on the river, but we didn’t see any.

Accessibility

As alluded to above, Nunnington Hall has been altered significantly over the years. And whilst it’s not as higgledy-piggledy as, for example, Little Moreton Hall or Bolling Hall, there is almost no step-free access inside the hall beyond the ground floor. The grounds are largely step-free, but not always on hard surfaces. A disabled toilet is available, but the nearest Changing Places toilets as several miles away in either Pickering or Malton.

Nunnington Hall is a mid-tier National Trust property, so entry prices are currently around £13 for adults. National Trust members get in free, as do RHS members and National Art Pass Holders.

There is a car park on the other side of the River Rye from the hall, linked by a footbridge, and this includes electric vehicle charging. There are four Standard (7kW AC, Type 2) chargers, although two were out of order when we visited. A £5 donation is requested if using the chargers. Additional charging is available in Nunnington village.

Bus services run on weekends and bank holidays only, from April to September. Two bus services run in each direction, setting off from Helmsley and heading to Castle Howard. Until the 1950s, Nunnington had a railway station, but it’s long gone now.

Making Waves at York Art Gallery

April 27, 2026 by Neil Turner

A print of 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' on display at the Making Waves exhibition at the York Art Gallery

As we were staying with my parents at Easter, we popped into York city centre on Easter Sunday to see the Making Waves exhibition at York Art Gallery. The exhibition is all about the art of Japanese block printing, where printers would carve wooden blocks that were then painted, to reproduce artworks on a massive scale.

The name Making Waves comes from the painting The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, which is one of the most recognisable paintings from this method. There is one of the 111 surviving original prints of this on show in Making Waves, on loan from the Maidstone Museum.

Now I keep saying that I’m not really into art, despite visiting a Banksy exhibition and the V&A last month, and now this. I stand by this, and I found the information about how the prints are made more interesting than the prints themselves.

A modern print creating using Japanese Block Printing, with the blocks shown.

Making Waves starts with an explanation of the process; there’s a video as well as a step-by-step guide. It’s notable that the process generally results in the original painting being destroyed, and so there is usually no surviving ‘original’, just the first print run. I particularly appreciated the display of a modern print, made using the traditional method, on show with some of the wooden blocks that were used to make it.

You then proceed around the exhibition largely in chronological order. The exhibition ends in the modern day, with some newer commissions of block printed art featuring characters from Japanese video games. Also, in the final room, you can use a series of rubber stamps to create your own block print, which is a nice touch.

Japanese Zen Garden

Around the back of the art gallery is a small Zen Garden that has been created for the exhibition. This is connected to the Museum Gardens and leads around the back to the nearby Yorkshire Museum.

We visited York Art Gallery a couple of years ago, and so we didn’t go upstairs to the rest of the galleries this time. The Making Waves exhibition is open until the 30th August this year.

Accessibility

York Art Gallery offers step free access throughout the building, with lift access to the upper floors. Accessible toilets are available, and there is a Changing Places toilet around the corner at York Central Library when that is open.

Parking your car in York city centre is unwise, and many buses stop right outside the art gallery, including Park & Ride services from Rawcliffe Bar. York railway station is a short walk away.

Admission is currently £9 per adult, but there are many discounts available, including free entry for Art Pass and Max Card holders, and York residents aged 16 and under.

Queer Britain, the national LGBTQ+ museum

April 23, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo inside the galleries at Queer Britain.

This is the sixth and final of my blog posts about last month’s trip to London. Following our trip to the Vagina Museum in the morning, we decided to continue the theme of ‘woke museums’ and visit Queer Britain, the national LGBTQ+ Museum.

I’ll be honest, our main reason for visiting was that it’s in King’s Cross, and was therefore close to where we needed to be for our train home that afternoon. But as someone who identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I decided it would be good to visit.

Queer Britain is a small museum – we were in and out within the hour – and despite having ‘national’ in its name, it’s very London-focussed. There’s not a lot about LGBTQ+ history in other parts of the UK; there was a bit about Justin Fashanu, a footballer who played for Norwich City and was Britain’s first openly gay professional player. But there was nothing about Manchester’s Gay Village, for example. Perhaps if the museum is able to expand in future, it will have more things to show that are from outside the capital.

There is also an events space, and if we hadn’t needed to catch a train, we would have stuck around for a panel discussion platforming LGBTQ+ migrants. We did, however, manage a quick selfie with the panel moderator, Tia Kofi, who you may know from Season 2 of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. They’re very tall.

Accessibility

The museum is all on one floor, with a ramp to the main door; however, extra wide wheelchairs may present an issue. An accessible gender neutral toilet is available; Changing Places toilets are available a short walk away at Pancras Leisure and King’s Cross station.

Entry is a recommended fee of £10, or pay what you feel. As it stands, I broadly agree with Ian that £10 is a big ask for a relatively small museum. The gift shop is good though.

Queer Britain is in Granary Square, on the other side of the Regents Canal from King’s Cross and St Pancras stations (which are all step-free). If it still existed, York Road tube station on the Piccadilly Line would be closest, but it closed 94 years ago.

Operation Mincemeat, the musical

April 21, 2026 by Neil Turner

A couple of weeks ago, the hit musical Operation Mincemeat made its way to Bradford’s Alhambra Theatre, and so Christine and I went to see it. It’s very good.

The true story of Operation Mincemeat

Like Kinky Boots, which we saw last month, Operation Mincemeat is based on a true story. The actual Operation Mincemeat took place in 1943 and was a distraction strategy by allied forces during the Second World War. It involved planting the body of a street tramp, disguised as a high ranking military official, off the coast of Spain. The body contained important (but crucially faked) documents implying that the Allies planned to invade Sardinia. Instead, the actual plan was to invade Sicily, which, at the time, was heavily guarded by Nazi forces. Sure enough, forces were re-allocated from Sicily to Sardinia, allowing the Allies to liberate Sicily.

Two books have been written about Operation Mincemeat; a novel in 1950 called Operation Heartbreak, and a second book in 1953, The Man Who Never Was. This second book was written by Ewen Montagu, one of the intelligence officers involved, and it was adapted for a film in 1956. A later film followed in 2021, called Operation Mincemeat, and now there’s a musical adaption too.

The musical

The musical largely follows the actual events of Operation Mincemeat, with some artistic license. It’s performed with just five actors, who, through many rapid costume changes, play lots of different parts. The set is relatively simple, with lighting used to great effect throughout. The songs are all original, and number over 20 – much of the show takes place in song.

It’s a lot of fun to watch. The cast were all great singers and performers, and despite the many, many costume changes, it always felt slick and well-rehearsed. A nice touch comes towards the end, where there is a tribute to the street tramp, and a revealing of his actual identity.

Whilst not aimed at children, Operation Mincemeat is fine for families with children to watch. I don’t think our ten-year-old would have liked it, but teenagers may be interested.

The musical opened in London in 2019, and moved to the West End in 2023 where it’s still running. It’s therefore unusual for a musical to go on tour so soon afterwards, but it appears that the West End run is almost completely booked up for months. Indeed, there appears to be a ballot to get tickets now. As such, you have more chance of seeing it on tour. Whilst the Bradford Alhambra Theatre run is over now, as I write this it is coming to the end of a two week run in Sheffield, after which it is off to Stoke-on-Trent and then Chester. It makes it back to Halifax in October, and I’m highly tempted to see it again.

The Vagina Museum

April 19, 2026 by Neil Turner

This is one of those blog posts where I’m glad I don’t take advertising on this blog anymore, as I imagine this post would get demonetised. This is the fifth of my blog posts about last month’s trip to London; I’m aware that we’ve been back for a month now, and there’s still a sixth and final post to go live this week. Today’s post is all about The Vagina Museum.

A Vagina Museum‽

Yes, a museum all about vaginas. Well, and the wider reproductive organs of women and others with vaginas – the museum tries very hard to be inclusive of trans and non-binary people as well.

It’s not a very big museum, and occupies two railway arches under the Weaver Line of the London Overground. It’s made up of three small named exhibitions spaces, called Betsey, Lucy and Anarcha, named after three enslaved Black American women who were all experimented on, and from whom our modern understanding of gynaecology is derived. Betsey’s gallery, upstairs, is home to the permanent exhibition, where you can see a complete preserved uterus (Christine commented that it was smaller than expected, considering how much it hurts when she’s on her period) and many photos of different types of vulvas.

Also upstairs is Anarcha’s gallery, which has written pieces from migrant women about their first period, and the challenges that their status as refugees has caused.

Downstairs, as well as the excellent gift shop, is Lucy’s gallery, and the current temporary exhibition about menopause, including its history and how our understanding of it has changed over time.

In all, we spent about an hour in the museum. It’s quite text heavy, and I don’t think our ten-year-old would have got much out of it, but we both found it enlightening. I’d definitely recommend visiting if you have a vagina, or live with someone who does.

Accessibility

Accessibility is good – there is a lift to the upstairs galleries, and no steps. There’s a single, gender-neutral, accessible toilet available. If you need a Changing Places toilet, then there is one nearby at the Young V&A (which we visited in 2024).

Entry to the museum is free, but a £5 donation is strongly encouraged. And did I mention that the gift shop is excellent? Note that museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The museum is very close to Cambridge Heath station on the London Overground, and a little further from Bethnal Green tube station on the Central Line. We got there on the 254 bus from outside Aldgate tube station, which is probably your best option for step-free transport; the nearest step-free station is Hoxton on the Windrush Line, which is a 20-25 minute walk.

I haven’t been noting about car parking or electric car charging in these London reviews, as we didn’t drive and I think you would be mad to drive in London, but there is a rapid Shell Recharge station around the corner.

V&A Cast Courts and Design Gallery

April 15, 2026 by Neil Turner

This is the fourth of my blog posts about last month’s trip to London. After visiting the Natural History Museum, we walked across the road to the V&A, where we visited the Cast Courts and the Design 1900-Now Gallery.

As I mentioned in my write-up of Banksy: Limitless, I’m not massively in to art, and so most of what the V&A offers isn’t of interest to me. Christine likes it though, and she has visited the V&A more often than I have. This time, she insisted on taking me to the Cast Courts on the ground floor.

Cast Courts

These three rooms are huge, extending to the full 25 metre height of the building. Their size is by necessity, as they contain some of the largest objects in the V&A’s collection.

As the name ‘cast’ suggests, these are plaster casts of various famous artefacts that exist elsewhere. There’s a cast of Michaelangelo’s David, for example, complete with a plaster fig leaf that was put over his manly bits when Queen Victoria visited. By far the biggest is a cast of Trajan’s Column, which is so big that it appears in two pieces. The cast courts were built as part of the original museum in the 1870s, and are now rather tightly packed with various pieces.

They’re impressive spaces, and it would be hard not to be wowed when walking in to them for the first time.

A photo of an Apple II computer and disk drive on display at the V&A

Design 1900-now

Whilst art may not be my thing, design and architecture are. So we went upstairs to the Design 1900-now gallery, which features 250 objects that show how design has changed over the past 126 years.

As well as furniture (including a standing lamp designed by Salvador Dali), there’s also technology here. There were two Apple computers on show; an Apple II, and a much newer MacBook that had been deliberately disassembled as it contained documents from Edward Snowden. There are also examples of objects that have been recently acquired, such as a Lababu.

The information included with each object is concise but thorough, but by virtue of being in central London, the limited space means that many objects are not on show here. Indeed, V&A has over a million objects in its collection, and has recently opened the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick to allow visitors access to more of its objects. There’s also the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, which we visited in 2024.

Accessibility

Entry to the museum is free, but like most free museums, some special exhibitions require paid-for tickets. The main entrances are step-free, but not the entrance from the Museum tunnel that links to South Kensington tube station which is the nearest. Knightsbridge is the nearest step free tube station.

There is step-free access to all parts of the museum, but as it’s an old building that has been added to over time, step-free routes may take longer than some more direct ones. Disabled toilets are available, but for a Changing Places toilet, you’ll need to go across the road to the Science Museum.

Bansky: Limitless exhibition

April 7, 2026 by Neil Turner

A timeline at the start of the Banksy Limitless immersive experience

This is the second of my blog posts about last month’s trip to London. The first was about Kinky Boots, and this is about the Banksy: Limitless exhibition which was the other thing that we pre-booked before travelling.

You’ve probably heard of the pseudonymous street artist Banksy. This exhibition is an ‘immersive experience’ which has around 250 of his artworks on display. These are a mixture of prints and recreations of his works, and include those displayed at Dismaland, the Walled Off Hotel, Ukraine and his London animal trail.

I’m not massively into art, but I find Banksy interesting – not least because his true identity remains a mystery to most. All most people know about him is that he is male, white, and that he probably comes from Bristol where his earlier works appeared. He has been producing street art since at least 1999, if not earlier.

He’s probably best known for his stencilled street art. Stencils allow him to design his pieces in his studio; then, when he’s out in a public place, he can then quickly spray paint his works and move on before he gets in trouble. However, his art takes many forms and this exhibition covers lots of them.

Immersive experience

Banksy: Limitless is billed as an ‘immersive experience’, which made me think about that infamous Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow. Thankfully, it’s not a load of AI generated slop. Instead, whilst some parts are like a typical art gallery, others parts are laid out like a tube station, or a recreation of Dismaland. The web site says that you can expect to spend at least 80 minutes here; we spent well over two hours in the end. And, of course, you Exit Through the Gift Shop.

It’s important to note that Banksy himself hasn’t authorised this exhibition. Instead, it’s a collection of (mostly) privately owned pieces and prints that have been brought together. I really enjoyed it.

Accessibility

Banksy: Limitless is in Sussex Mansions on Old Brompton Road. It’s a short walk from South Kensington tube station on the Piccadilly, Circle and District Lines. The nearest step-free tube station is Knightsbridge, the previous stop on the Piccadilly line, which is a one mile walk.

The building is wheelchair accessible. The exhibition is across two floors, and there is a lift available. There are also toilets on site. The nearest Changing Places toilets are at the Science Museum, and the Royal Brompton Hospital, which are both a short distance away. Strobe lighting is used in the exhibition, and there is also an optional section towards the end that people with motion sickness are advised to avoid.

Ticket prices start at £20 each; Google’s AI summary offered me the discount code LONDONBY10 which gave me a 10% discount. Tickets are handled by Fever who we also used for The Art of the Brick, and you can earn points from your booking to use against future bookings (although this can’t be combined with discount codes).

Kinky Boots at the London Coliseum

March 29, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of the inside of the London Coliseum before the start of Kinky Boots

We’ve been back from London for a week now, so I suppose it’s about time I started writing about what we got up to whilst we were away. We went down last Thursday, and on the Thursday evening, we went to see Kinky Boots at the London Coliseum.

When Christine and I are in London, we usually try to see a show there too. Sometimes it’s planned – we booked the tickets for Kinky Boots a week in advance, and have done the same with Matilda, Wicked and The Play That Goes Wrong in the past. And other times, like when we went to see We Will Rock You, we picked up last minute cheap seats on the afternoon of the show.

The plot of Kinky Boots

Kinky Boots was originally a film which same out in 2005, and is based on a true story that was featured in the BBC2 documentary series Trouble at the Top. It follows the story of Charlie Price, who inherits his family’s shoemaking business in Northampton. The business is falling on hard times; though the shoes it makes are good quality, it can’t compete with cheaper imports and is about to go bust. But a chance meeting with a drag queen, Lola, sees Charlie finding a niche – making high quality boots for drag artists.

As you would expect from a musical that features drag artists, it’s very camp, but also touches on homophobia and transphobia.

The musical of Kinky Boots premiered in Chicago in 2012, and moved to Broadway the following year. The actor Billy Porter earned a Tony award for his portrayal of Lola, and he sings on the official soundtrack. The music was written by Cindy Lauper, but it’s not a jukebox musical – the songs were written for the show, so there’s no renditions of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. The music is really good, and I appreciate musicals that have new music written for them as opposed to jukebox musicals.

Kinky Boots in the West End

Its first London run was in 2015, where it ran for four years at the Adelphi Theatre, closing in 2019.

This time, it’s at the London Coliseum, which is the largest theatre in the West End seating 2,359 people. Normally the Coliseum is the home of the English National Opera, so Kinky Boots probably attracts a rather different crowd. The role of Charlie Price is played by X-Factor winner Matt Cardle, with the South African actor Johannes Radebe playing Lola.

We really enjoyed the show. There’s some sad bits, but (as mentioned) the music is excellent and it’s well put-together, with great use of lighting.

Kinky Boots is on a limited run, which, as it stands, ends in mid-July. Tickets start from £25; we bought the £35 tickets for the upper circle, which is the third of four tiers in the London Coliseum. The view was pretty good from our seats.

If you’re looking to save a little bit of money on tickets, then Official London Theatre charges a lower booking fee than booking direct with the theatre, and they accept Theatre Tokens. If you’re a member of a site like JamDoughnut or EverUp (referral link) then you can buy Theatre Tokens at a discount.

Accessibility

Accessibility at the London Coliseum is pretty good, as the theatre was extensively renovated in the early 2000s. There is lift access to most floors, and wheelchair spaces are available. There are disabled and unisex toilets available, but there isn’t a Changing Places toilet. That being said, the London Coliseum is only a short walk/wheel away from Trafalgar Square where there are Changing Places toilets in the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, although they will only be available during the gallery opening times.

There are special showings with captions, audio descriptions and British Sign Language interpretation in April and May.

The nearest tube stations are Leicester Square and Charing Cross, and it’s not too far from Embankment station either.

The Power Hall and Cosmic Chaos

March 13, 2026 by Neil Turner

A couple of weeks ago, we went back to the Science & Industry Museum in Manchester, to see the newly re-opened Power Hall, and their latest exhibition, Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos. I’ve written about their previous exhibitions here and here.

The Power Hall

The Power Hall has been closed for six of years for a refurbishment. This has included replacing the roof, and installing a more efficient heating system. Indeed, the new heating system is now an exhibit in itself – it’s based around water-source heat pumps which pump water from an aquifer 90 metres below the museum. The heating system also incorporates a recovery system for the steam generated by the various machines on display in the Power Hall. Overall, the new system should be cheaper to run and better for the environment, and explaining how it works is just what the museum should be doing. It’s quite the comparison to see this fancy new system alongside machinery that’s over a hundred years old.

Speaking of the other machines, these are not all on at the same time, but there is a schedule for when they are powered up. These include a talk by one of the museum’s explainer staff, about where the machine came from and what it was used for. We got to see the Buxton diesel generator in action, which used to work in mine research site in Buxton at a time when the site wasn’t connected to the Nation Grid.

As well as static machines, the Power Hall is also home to some locomotives. There’s an enormous steam locomotive with two tenders, that was built in Manchester almost 100 years ago but worked in South Africa. A smaller locomotive, which was built for the Isle of Man, has been sectioned so that you can see inside it. There’s also Ariadne, a Class 77 electric locomotive that was built for services on the now-closed Woodhead Line between Sheffield and Manchester, and was later exported to the Netherlands. The Woodhead Line used a 1500 KV DC electrification system which isn’t used elsewhere in the UK (apart from on the Tyne & Wear Metro) but is common in the Netherlands.

The refurbishment of the Power Hall is good, and it’s nice to see some of the old exhibits again. It’s also nice for the museum to have more than one building open again; hopefully the rest of the site will be ready by 2030 for the 200th anniversary of the Manchester Liverpool Road station.

Entry to the Power Hall is free.

Inside the Cosmic Chaos exhibition at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum

Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos

The BBC is following up its hit Horrible Histories series with Horrible Science, and this exhibition is themed around its central character, Dr Big Brain. At the start of the exhibition is a short video where you are recruited as one of his henchpeople, and you are tasked with helping him conquer the solar system. On the way, you get to see what passes for a toilet on a Soyuz-Mir spacecraft, how astronauts live in space, and what each planet in our solar system is like. There’s a good balance of objects from the museum’s collection, with videos and interactive activities for kids.

The exhibition is primarily aimed at 8-14 year olds, as you would expect for a CBBC TV series, but I learned a few things whilst there. As with other special exhibitions, you need to pay extra for entry. Advance booking is recommended for busier times, like school holidays, but when we went on a Sunday it wasn’t too busy.

Accessibility

I’m going to skip over the accessibility section for this one as it’s basically the same as last time we visited.