💷 Free entry

Museum of Gloucester

Free city museum in Gloucester with Roman displays, a dinosaur gallery, the Iron Age Birdlip Mirror and an interactive games zone for all ages.

Where Gloucester, Gloucestershire Price Free entry When wet Indoors SEND-friendly

✦ We visited

A solid free day out for mixed-age families. The Birdlip Mirror alone is worth the trip, and the hands-on games zone keeps older children engaged long after younger siblings have moved on.

The Museum of Gloucester sits on Brunswick Road in the heart of the city and holds around 750,000 objects spanning more than two thousand years of local history — and it charges nothing to get through the door.

The Roman collection is the centrepiece. Gloucester was founded as a Roman fortress around 43 AD and the museum holds some remarkable finds from those years, including the Birdlip Mirror, a beautifully decorated iron-age bronze mirror discovered in a burial near the city. The galleries set objects at child height and invite handling where possible, making the Roman story accessible to younger visitors who have a habit of losing interest in glass cases.

For children drawn to natural history, the dinosaur and fossil gallery delivers. Full-size casts and real specimens fill the room, and there are interactive panels alongside the displays. The medieval gallery recreates the sights and smells of a Gloucester street, which reliably produces reactions from children old enough to be startled by the authenticity of it.

The games zone brings families back together: interactive challenges draw on the collections and work for a wide age range. Pre-booking is recommended, especially during school holidays, though walk-ins are usually possible outside peak times.

Good for: history, dinosaurs, rainy-day, sensory. Ages: 0–2, 3–4, 5–7, 8–11, 12+.