Daleks, self-heating soup and the first vehicle to complete a motorised crossing of Antarctica are among the things you can see at the Science Museum’s new Hawking Building which opened to public tours on October 11.
More than a storage facility, the new, purpose-built for the Science Museum Group Collection can be visited through public tours, school trips and research appointments.
The building is located in the Science and Innovation Park just outside Wroughton, south of Swindon and is named after arguably the greatest scientist-celebrity who lived.
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(Image: Science Museum Group)
A spokesperson said they hope visits to the nation’s vast collection will inspire people just as Stephen Hawking did.
Public tours are led by an expert around “world-changing” objects of all shapes, sizes and varieties. While most of a museum’s collection is usually hidden away from the public, this aims to bring more of that collection into the public eye.
A spokesperson said: “The guided public tours will take visitors from objects that explored the stratosphere to machines that plumbed the depths of our oceans.
“Visitors will see a Spacelab 2 X-ray telescope carried into orbit by the US Space Shuttle Challenger and a Leyland Titan double-decker bus, explore shelving containing objects from Stephen Hawking’s office, and even a NASA Flight Simulator chair used to train astronauts at the Johnson Space Center.”
School visits will begin on Monday 14 October including a live science show about forces, while anyone can apply to study an object at the collection as a researcher.
The move also involved the digitisation of the collection with 50 per cent of the collection photographed online.
Construction of the vast Hawking Building began in 2019 and was completed eighteen months later. With 30km of shelving, the facility is equivalent in size to 600 double-decker buses.
The process of studying, recording, photographing, digitising, packing, moving and unpacking over 300,000 historic objects began in 2018 and finished earlier this year.
Public guided tours are available on select days from Friday, October 11 to Friday, November 15, and will recommence on select days from Friday, March 7, 2025.
Ticketed: £27.50, Concessions and local residents (Postcode beginning with SN1, SN2, SN3, SN4 or SN5): £16.50, Ages 7-12 go free
Ages: Strictly ages 7+, recommended age is 12+
Tickets on general sale from 11 October 2024.
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