Huge Science Museum Group collection opens to public near Swindon

The first public tours have been launched at a building housing more than 300,000 historic items from the Science Museum Group.

Visitors can now walk around the 20,000 sq ft Hawking Building at the Science and Innovation Park, located on a former RAF airfield at Wroughton, near Swindon.

The tours are the culmination of a six-year programme costing £65m to move objects from the Science Museum Group’s collection into a purpose-built new home.

The collection includes an eclectic mixture of items including the first vehicle to cross Antarctica, objects from NASA space shuttles, submarines, medical devices and a unique rubber duck.

Named after Prof Stephen Hawking, much of the contents of his office is stored at the building.

Sir Ian Blatchford, director and chief executive of the Science Museum Group, said: “Having been inspired at the Science Museum as a child, Stephen became a great friend to the Science Museum Group and this is a fitting way to celebrate that life-long relationship.”

There is a large floorspace for the bigger objects, with 30,000m of shelving for the rest, which includes 42,000 barcodes to identify items.

The project began in 2018, with unpacking alone taking two years, and the collection will also be open to school trips and researchers.

Sian Williams, programme director, said: “You could fit 600 double decker buses onto the floor of this building, that gives you some idea of the scale.”

She explained that only about 5% of objects are on display at any one time from the Science Museum Group’s five museums, which includes the Science Museum in London and York’s National Railway Museum.

The Hawking Building includes conservation laboratories and a photo studio, which means the public can see many of the objects online.

The tallest object in the building is a 16ft 4in (5m) tall Glasgow tramcar. The longest is a 62ft 9in (19.2m) racing boat.

School visits begin next week and 2025 tickets for the public are now on sale.

Funding came from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and HM Treasury as part of the £150m Blythe House Project, which saw collections from the Science Museum Group, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum moved from London to new facilities.