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What are the most unusual museums and places to visit in the UK?

Posted by AdCommercial617@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 84 comments

As its Kids holidays I'd like to go out with the family and see thing in the UK that are abit different from the norm.

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84 Comments

aembleton@reddit

Lawnmower museum in Southport [http://www.lawnmowerworld.co.uk/](http://www.lawnmowerworld.co.uk/)
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MangoConfident4853@reddit

Fabulous little place. The gardens nearby, and the town arts centre / museum are also well worth a visit (though are far more 'normal').
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Mumfiegirl@reddit

I was hoping to see this!
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Well, that's a winner for weird
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No_Astronaut3059@reddit

Mary Rose is (or was last time I went) a really random, cool experience. Portsmouth has other historic ships and docks well worth visiting, as well as seaside-y attractions, but seeing a shipwreck almost suspended in time is pretty cool.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

I saw the Mary Rose, amazing
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No_Astronaut3059@reddit

Amazing! Really glad to hear you enjoyed it!
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exquisiteboobs@reddit

For unusual, try [Alnwick poison garden](https://www.alnwickgarden.com/).
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FlossieAnn@reddit

[National Space Centre](https://www.spacecentre.co.uk/) in Leicester
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Looks good
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geniice@reddit

Not even the most unusal in Leicester. That would be the gas museum https://www.nationalgasmuseum.org.uk/ Which is mostly a collection of the all the suff handed in for scrap when we went from town gas to natural gas. So a lot of old gas overns but also oddities like gas powered radios and hair driers.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Good one
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LilacRose32@reddit

I always recommend Forbidden Corner and Beamish 
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GoodReverendHonk@reddit

Blists Hill is similar to Beamish and is located near Ironbridge. Really recommend that too!
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Never heard of forbidden corner
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Sweaty_Sheepherder27@reddit

It's tucked away in the Yorkshire Dales. The guy built it without planning permission, so you have to pre-book tickets in order to get round some of the rules. Worth a look.
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Ok-Pudding4597@reddit

I was going to say Beamish!!
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Beamish is cool
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pingypippop@reddit

The Wookey hole in Somerset it has the biggest clown customer collection in the world
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OMGItsCheezWTF@reddit

My wife and I took my mum for a visit there in April. There's so much to do there! We had a good 4 hours of things to do as adults and if you have kids that's easily a full day out and didn't cost the world. We really liked it.
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Thestolenone@reddit

My sister works there. I used to love to take my kids back in the 90's.
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pingypippop@reddit

I think this is where my fear of clowns started
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Can't do clowns
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double-happiness@reddit

> As its Kids holidays I'd like to go out with the family and see thing in the UK that are abit different from the norm. Go to Whitby for a fang-tastic time... https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/whitby-abbey/history-and-stories/dracula/ https://www.thewhitbyguide.co.uk/dracula-in-whitby/ https://www.visitwhitby.com/blog/dracula-and-whitby/ https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186345-d2300151-Reviews-Dracula_Experience-Whitby_Scarborough_District_North_Yorkshire_England.html Bonus: watch out for idiots who actually think Dracula was real history, as I'm told there genuinely are some.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Thank you
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bucketofardvarks@reddit

Coffin museum, Birmingham
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Wow that's a unique one
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BasicallyClassy@reddit

There are also Lidner coffin calendars, if you can believe it.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

That's dark
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BasicallyClassy@reddit

I guess you need that dark humour to work in undertaking
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jonathing@reddit

That pairs nicely with the Pen Museum nearby
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IntrovertedArcher@reddit

Do you want to see a lion that’s been stuffed by someone who’s never seen a lion? Then you want to go to Tring Natural History Museum.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Mmmh
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IntrovertedArcher@reddit

Slightly off topic but for a generally hilarious take on Tring and its museum, listen to this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001bssk?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
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SimplyMiz@reddit

Cuckooland in Chehsire. Many clocks.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Lol great
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BasicallyClassy@reddit

Big Pit National Mining museum in Blaenavon. You get to go underground, see where the pit ponies lived, turn your headlamps off and experience true darkness. Also nearby, St Fagin's Folk Museum. It's a bunch of buildings from different historical periods that were taken apart, brick by brick and rebuilt in the grounds of St Fagans castle. There's houses, a farm, a school, a chapel and a Workmen's Institute. Every school kid in South Wales has been at some point, it's really good.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Sounds a bit like Beamish
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BalthazarOfTheOrions@reddit

I often drive past a doll museum. Like hell will I go to visit it, I'd end up in the house of wax.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Start of a horror movie
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Straight_Spinach9528@reddit

not that unusual but the viking museum in york. can’t remember the name but have vivid memories of it as a child and still to this day complain about the accurate smell of the time. imagine riding on a little cart in a room smelling of pure urine for ten minutes, brilliant.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

jorvik. Really good. We've been there
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Bbew_Mot@reddit

Littledean Jail. I've never been there, I just saw it in Netflix's *Dark Tourist* and it looks like a super dark and bizarre place.
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Delahorney@reddit

I’ve been there and it’s… something.
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dbxp@reddit

St Leonard's has the largest collection of human skulls in the UK: [https://www.visitfolkestoneandhythe.co.uk/attractions/st-leonards-church-and-ossuary-hythe-2345/](https://www.visitfolkestoneandhythe.co.uk/attractions/st-leonards-church-and-ossuary-hythe-2345/)
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knight-under-stars@reddit

Body Worlds is very unusual. Depending on the age of your kids though it may be a little too unusual. https://bodyworlds.com/
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dbxp@reddit

I don't think it's in the UK any time soon
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

A bit graphic I think but thanks
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dbxp@reddit

Hunterian Museum is pretty cool if you like anatomy
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Karenpff@reddit

Beamish open air museum near Newcastle 👌 Spend a whole weekend there walking around looking at everything. They've also just opened up additions to their 1950s town 😊
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ThePolymath1993@reddit

The Brunel Museum has an awesome array of Isambard Kingdom Brunel related exhibits and a gift shop full of Brunel swag.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Sounds great but trying to stear clear of London
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BurntWhisky@reddit

Grant museum of zoology ([website link](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum-zoology)) Always full of weird fossils, bones and jars of preserved animals, really fascinating!
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Sounds it.
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Thestolenone@reddit

Bradford Industrial Museum. It sounds grim but it is fascinating and there is loads to see.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Cool. We did go to National Science and Media Museum there
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The_Ignorant_Sapien@reddit

[Surgeons' Hall Museum](https://museum.rcsed.ac.uk/), Edinburgh, home to one of the largest and most historic pathology collections in the United Kingdom. There is some weird stuff there.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

We may be going to Edinburgh so good call
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The_Ignorant_Sapien@reddit

I might add, it may not be suitable for young children or the squeamish.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Thanks
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avartee@reddit

Natural history museum branch in Tring. Really cool Rothschild's collection of stuffed animals. Thousands of them.
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filthythedog@reddit

The museum in Oswestry has a large collection of ear-trumpets.
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Wormella@reddit

It does! Such a delight to stumble across this collection
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Now that's what I'm talking about. Very odd.
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tmstms@reddit

Keswick Pencil Museum
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Lol great
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tmstms@reddit

World's biggest pencil!
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Another winner
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DerwentPencilMuseum@reddit

Excellent suggestion!
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Ok-Pudding4597@reddit

Kelham Island Steelmaking Museum, Sheffield
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Sounds good
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Elgin-Franklin@reddit

The Museum of Scottish Lighthouses. It's a trek to get to but it's a neat little muesum full of mirrors and lenses and memorabillia from the lighthouse keepers.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Cool
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doloresfandango@reddit

Chillingham Castle. You can touch the exhibits and there are so many also it has a wonderful history.
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Nice
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Nyghtegale@reddit

The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities: [https://thelasttuesdaysociety.org/](https://thelasttuesdaysociety.org/) "The Museum will present an incoherent vision of the world displayed through wonder enclosed within a tiny space, no attempt is made at classification and comprehensiveness... a mirror to a world so suffused with miracles and beauty that any attempt at categorization is bound to fail ...this museum will merely display everything that has glittered & caught the eye of it’s founder – from rare priceless marvels of the natural and scientific worlds like Dodo Bones or speculum to the intriguing beauty of McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys, from old master etchings to prison inmates & mad women’s doodles, occultists paintings and pop art prints, the horrors and wonders of nature, two headed kittens and living coral. By placing the rare and the beautiful on the same plane as the commonplace, banal & amusing this museum seeks not to educate but to subvert, to show the world not in a grain of sand, but in a Hackney basement. The Museum has no overreaching aim beyond the theft of it’s visitors time and the hope that it will provide amusement by return & hopes to fill the vacuum between what the establishment elite believes is worthy of worship & what exists in the world."
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Blimey, that's a weird one
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iolaus79@reddit

Imber - obviously needs to be planned in advance as theres only a few days each year (could go on Imberbusday which adds old fashioned doubledecker buses to it https://imberbus.org/)
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Sounds great
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TheShakyHandsMan@reddit

Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds. Although may be a little gruesome for young kids. 
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Ah
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BulkyAccident@reddit

Atlas Obscura is a good resource for this sort of thing. [https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/united-kingdom](https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/united-kingdom)
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AdCommercial617@reddit (OP)

Thank
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