6 Reasons why you’ll love Experience Barnsley Museum & Discovery Centre | Free day out

September 6, 2018September 6, 2018 naomi 0 Comments barnsley, Barnsley museum, experience Barnsley, free day out, free days out, free museum, indoors, interactive, museum, rainy day

We were so pleasantly surprised when we went to visit Experience Barnsley Museum & Discovery Centre museum for the first time. It’s free to visit, it was a rainy day so we thought we would try it out as we needed something to do. I’m so glad we did, Eric had a great time and best of all we didn’t have to pay anything for it! I love finding new things to do which are free and this museum is great for toddlers with lots to play and interact with. Experience Barnsley Museum & Discovery Centre, South Yorkshire

Experience Barnsley Museum & Discovery Centre, South Yorkshire

Watch this short video to see what there is to do for toddlers at the museum:

6 Reasons why you’ll love Experience Barnsley Museum & Discovery centre

It’s free!!
There’s a cafe and toilets. It’s the little things like this which make all the difference.
Hands on games, activities and displays are all around such as building block tables, digging zone, telephones at toddler height to pretend with and craft table.
There’s 2 old vintage cars and a horse which you can sit on/ride on- and they don’t move but very interactive. They’re actually old fair ground rides.
Dressing up opportunities with costumes and hats.
Lots of space to run around without being too busy; we visited during school holidays on a weekday and it was not busy. Eric could explore without bumping into too many people and was free to just wander around. It makes a big difference to us when we visit a museum if we don’t feel rushed and can just go at our own pace.

We recently went back again (summer 2018) and pleased to say that they’ve added a new wooden play shop, Eric loved it!

Experience Barnsley Museum & Discovery Centre, South Yorkshire

And if you visit on a nice day, there’s fountains just outside with picnic benches.

If it’s not such nice weather when you go, you can take your own picnic and eat it inside the market.

Across the road is The Cooper Gallery, which is free to visit and we were really impressed with that, too. You could pair up a visit to the Experience Barnsley with the Cooper gallery to make a full day out. There is picnic space with benches, etc., outside the museum. We didn’t leave enough time to do them both. The Cooper Gallery had activities suitable for children and free art explorer bag which were so cute.

Both museums are in Barnsley city centre and can easily be reached by bus or train from Sheffield. From the train station just head up the street on your left hand side, you’ll find the museum straight ahead at the top of the street.