Discovery Museum facts for kids
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The Discovery Museum in 2018
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| Established | 1934 |
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| Location | Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| Public transit access | Newcastle Central Station |
The Discovery Museum is a super cool place in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It's a science museum and also tells the story of local history. You can see amazing things there, like the famous ship called Turbinia! The museum is managed by North East Museums.
Contents
A Journey Through Time: The Museum's Story
How the Museum Began
The Discovery Museum first opened its doors in 1934. Back then, it was called the Municipal Museum of Science and Industry. Its first home was a temporary building. This building was part of the 1929 North East Coast Exhibition. It was located in Exhibition Park, Newcastle.
Finding a New Home
For about 40 years, the museum's collections grew bigger and bigger. The temporary building just wasn't big enough anymore! So, in 1978, the museum moved to a new place. This new home was called Blandford House.
Blandford House was a very large building. It used to be the main office and warehouse for many Co-op stores. It was designed way back in 1899. This building had lots of space for all the museum's cool stuff.
Becoming the Discovery Museum
The museum got its new name, Discovery Museum, in 1993. This is when the amazing ship Turbinia was moved to its new spot inside the museum.
Later, in 2004, the museum had a big makeover. It cost about £13 million to make it even better! The next year, in 2005, a huge number of people visited. About 450,000 visitors came to explore the museum.
What You Can Discover: Amazing Exhibits
The Discovery Museum is a "hands-on" museum. This means you can touch and interact with many of the exhibits. It's designed to be fun and interesting for both kids and adults!
The Incredible Turbinia
One of the most famous things you'll see is the Turbinia ship. This ship is about 32 meters (104 feet) long! It was built by a clever inventor named Charles Algernon Parsons. He wanted to show how fast ships could go using a new type of engine called a steam turbine. The Turbinia could zoom across the water at speeds up to 34 knots (about 63 kilometers per hour)!
More Cool Inventions and Stories
You can also see early lightbulbs invented by Joseph Swan. He created these right here in Tyneside!
The museum also has a special section about soldiers. It's the regimental museum for the Light Dragoons and the Northumberland Hussars. Here, you can learn about what life was like for soldiers over 200 years of army history.
