Discovery Museum

About Discovery Museum

The Discovery Museum tells the story of Tyneside's inventors, engineers and working life, and it does so free of charge. The collection began in 1934 as the Municipal Museum of Science and Industry, first housed in a pavilion left over from the 1929 North East Coast Exhibition at Exhibition Park. In 1978 it moved into Blandford House, a confident 1899 building by Oliver, Leeson and Wood that had been the regional headquarters of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and it was rebranded as the Discovery Museum in 1993. A £13 million redevelopment completed in 2004 opened up the galleries; the following year around 450,000 people came through the doors.

The centrepiece is Turbinia, the 31.9 metre vessel built by Charles Algernon Parsons to prove the case for steam turbine propulsion, which reached some 34 knots and made a famous uninvited appearance at the 1897 Spithead review. She fills a purpose-built hall on the ground floor. Elsewhere there are early incandescent lightbulbs made by Joseph Swan, who demonstrated electric lighting on Tyneside, the Light Dragoons regimental collection covering two centuries of military history, a Tyneside social history gallery and hands-on science displays aimed squarely at children. There is a café on the second floor, a shop at ground level and step-free access throughout, a short walk from Central Station.

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