British Motor Museum

To be honest my boys were a bit embarrassingly loopy on arrival. There were some amazing cars after reception that they got all excited about and then they spotted an up and down escalator to the cafe. As soon as I’d caught up with them going up then they were going down the other side but the less said about that the better!

The museum is really child friendly.  They have great events running during the school holidays and when we visitd it was a Formula 1 theme for Feb half term. There were arts & crafts, we built our own Lego race cars and raced them (my 11 year old had to take over as I was not managing very well), a cool road map trail and a super interactive science show.

If you go, don’t miss the science show, it’s great. Two crazy professors had the audience enthralled and laughing with their experiments. Plenty of dry ice excitement, pumping of balloons ( I ended up being the adult volunteer for that one) and lots of audience participation. It’s not easy to appeal to a wide range of ages but my 5,9 and 11 year old boys all loved it. Lots of toddlers and older kids in there too.

I’m not what you’d call a car enthusiast so was surprised that I was really taken with the museum. It’s not just old cars (although they are my favourite but everything possible from concept cars to an old London bus and cars that have featured on TV and in movies.

Curving around the building, vehicles are laid out through the ages from 1896 to 1996 and then there are central zones for Jaguars, concept cars, sports cars and motorsports.

There’s also a hands on kids zone which is always great. If you have a little one. ditch the pushchair and pick up the mini Mini. My youngest was a little bit and didn’t need it but had a go anyway.

We ended up staying for 4 hours but could have spent longer. Food in the cafe is great – good value, tasty and even the kids portions were big enough for a hungry 11 year old.