Kirkleatham Museum

The museum and grounds, with playpark, offer a great value day out. The museum is free to enter, and I was pleasently surprised with what was inside. There is safe open fields outside where the children can run about etc all day, plus the playpark. We never tried the food place, as we took a picnicits more fun that way isn’t it? There was not one moan from any of the children.(5, altogether, from 2 to 14).they all seemed very happyand interested in the museum. Never got into the Owl sanctuary as it was closedand looked quite expensive anyway. But we all enjoyed the dayand look forward to going again.

Free amenity with ample free parking on site. This is a fantastic, largely unspoiled museum and well worth a visit. Situated in beautiful grounds with a great café offering healthy home-​cooked food, all very reasonably priced.
Within the grounds of the museum is the Owl Centre. This is especially popular with children and the staff are always very helpful and informative.
The museum exhibitions are always very well executed. This museum is very good at attracting some of the more obscure exhibitions that you would normally have to venture to a city to see.
Gift shop is very extensive and the museum staff are always eager to spend time with you and show you something that you may have missed.

A wonderful, free, local authority resource for families as a museum with local historic artifacts and photographs, a library, education centre for schools, excellent café and cutting edge photography and art/​craft, changing exhibitions. There are organised bookable events for children during holidays, a younger childrens’ play area and pleasant gardens. There is disabled access and good parking space.
The owl centre is situated next door, which does have an admission fee, as it is privately managed. All of this is just one jewel in the crown for people living in Teesside and Cleveland and worth a regular visit.
Linda Daniel (London)

Fantastic free local history museum with events for kids in the holidays. This museum has several exhibitions, some static some changing seasonally, as well as an education centre, childrens play area, refurbished café, gardens and lots of parking. It is local authority run, so free to get in, and there are also kids activity days in the school holidays which you usually have to book a place on, but are free to attend and tend to be craft focused but very unusual. There is also a local history library, and an ample historic photograph collection from which prints can be ordered on request. Next door is an owl centre, although this is privately owned and a little pricey.