Visit the Science Museum & 3D IMAX Cinema in London

Useful things to know before your visit

Address: Science Museum, Exhibition Road, South Kensington SW7 2DD. Telephone: 0330 058 0058. Website: sciencemuseum.org

How much do the tickets cost?

The Science Museum is free, but temporary exhibitions might cost extra.

What are the opening hours?

Opening times are 10am to 6pm (Mon-Sun). Last entry is 45 minutes before closing time.

How much time do you need?

A typical visit to the Science Museum takes 2½ to 3 hours, plus another hour if you watch an IMAX movie.

Which buses go to the Science Museum?

Bus routes 9, 10, 14, 49, 52, 70, 74, 345, 360, 414, 430, 452 and C1 all stop close by.

Which is the closest train station?

The nearest station is South Kensington, which connects with the Circle District and Piccadilly lines. You can walk the ¼ mile to the Science Museum in about 5 minutes.

Which other attractions are nearby?

These attractions are all within 15 minutes walk of the Science Museum: Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum, Brompton Oratory, Royal Albert Hall, Albert Memorial and Harrods.

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My review of the Science Museum

Worth a visit? ★★★Good value? freeGood for kids? ★★☆

Reviewed by Craig Cross on 11 July 2026. Times and prices updated on 22 July 2026

Once you’ve negotiated the security search you’re straight into the Energy Hall and its collection of 18th-19th century steam machines. Imagine a big factory floor filled with pumps, pulleys, turbines and boilers from the Industrial Revolution. A few of them are moving and their cogs and chains make a wonderful thunderstorm of clanks, bangs and knocking noises as their wheels are turning.

The Energy Hall in the Science Museum — The Energy Hall as you enter the Science Museum

The Old Bess beam engine by Boulton & Watt

The most famous ones are supposed to be Richard Trevithick’s high-pressure engine and the ‘Old Bess’ beam machine by Boulton and Watt, but unless you’re into in the history of pistons from 1715 to 1904 you’ll probably skip straight past them to the rockets, satellites and planetary landers in Exploring Space.

Apollo Spacecraft in the ‘Exploring Space’ gallery

Most of the exhibits are models but they’ve got a few surprises in there including a back-up engine from Apollo 9 and the actual command module from Apollo 10 that orbited the moon 31 times before splashing down in the sea.

My favourite is the model of the Apollo 11 lander that’s standing in a dusty little moonscape. It seems to be covered in a flimsy tin foil that’s not much thicker than a Kit Kat wrapper and has so many struts and funnels coming out of it that it’s amazing they even got it off the launchpad undamaged, let alone land it on the moon.

The Soyuz descent module that carried astronaut Tim Peake

More recent objects include Helen Sharman’s spacesuit from 1991, the Soyuz descent module that bought Tim Peake back home in 2016, and a mock-up of the Blue Origin capsule so you can see what it’s like to sit inside.

The gallery also has the only hands-on exhibit that I dared to touch all day… putting my hands through a perspex tube into some bulky astronaut’s gloves and trying to tighten up some nuts and bolts. I don’t mean to boast but I actually found it pretty easy. Maybe I’m in the wrong job.

Old cars in the ‘Making The Modern World’ gallery

Making The Modern World has a timeline of contraptions from the Puffing Billy steam engine (they used to have Stephenson’s Rocket but it’s been moved to the National Railway Museum in York) right up to a V2 rocket and big mirror from a 40-foot telescope.

A Model T Ford car — An early Model T Ford car

It’s a bit like Madame Tussauds for vehicles – you can see a Penny Farthing bike and some of those rickety old cars made out of levers, leather and wood that chug around the cobbled streets of Downton Abbey, plus all sorts of metal machines from lathes and looms to lawnmowers, clocks and barometers.

Old computers in the ‘Information Age’ and ‘Mathematics’ gallery

Information Age covers the history of communications from transatlantic telegraph cables and Marconi’s early radio equipment to those big cabinet TVs that you had to warm up before watching them.

The Information Age gallery at the Science Museum

The Mathematics Gallery doesn’t sound very exciting as a title but this is where you’ll find all the early computers. They start off with an abacus and then move through a model of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine and an Enigma code-breaking machine, right up to a huge 1950s computer that looks like a humming cupboard full of lights and wires.

An early Apple computer at the Science Museum

Early mobile phones at the Science Museum

This is the gallery where you’ll start to feel very old indeed because you’re entering a world where flip-phones and fax machines are museum pieces. When I was at school we learnt to program on the BBC Micro and played games on the Commodore 64 – they’re both on display here like they’re ancient artefacts! They talk about floppy disks like they’re wax tablets from Roman times. And they’ve got a boxed copy of Windows 95 that I distinctly remember buying from the shop… not to mention all of the camcorders, video recorders and Atari games machines that we remember from our youth.

Old airplanes in the ‘Flight’ gallery

The Vickers Vimy bi-plane in the Flight Gallery

You won’t believe your eyes when you first walk into the Flight Gallery and see a load of old bi-planes, jet planes and helicopters hanging from the roof. It’s worth a visit just for the total surprise of entering an aircraft hangar three floors up the building.

It begins with those canvas-winged pedal planes that had bicycle wheels on the bottom, then a replica of the Antoinette monoplane from 1909, the Vickers Vimy bi-plane from 1919, and Amy Johnson’s Gipsy Moth from 1930. Then comes a Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane and a Messerschmitt still dogfighting in the sky, an experimental Hawker P1127 that later became the Harrier jump-jet, and a cutaway cockpit from a Boeing 747 that you can climb inside.

World War II Spitfire in the Flight Gallery

If you enjoy messing around with Airfix kits then you’ve just found your happy place because all along the side wall they’ve got massive racks of dismantled jet engines and display cases full of airplane and airship models – there must be a couple of hundred of them at least.

History of medicine in ‘The Wellcome Galleries’

The Wellcome Galleries cover the history of medicine from ancient pots and potions and brutal tools of medieval Europe, through to the herbal remedies, early antiseptics, and anatomical models of today.

The Wellcome Galleries at the Science Museum

If you came to the Science Museum as a kid then you might remember their life-size mock-ups of doctors’ surgeries throughout the ages. I remember they had a plague-ridden street scene and doctors amputating arms on a Napoleonic warship – even some waxwork surgeons working on a waxwork patient in a full-size operating theatre – but sadly they all seem to have disappeared now. What you get instead is a display of shiny white medical equipment, a fashion parade of nurses uniforms, and some celebratory posters about the birth of the NHS.

It’s interesting enough if you’re into medicine, I suppose, but for the casual person who only visits a hospital when they’re ill then I’d probably recommend the Hunterian Museum instead.

Watch a 3D movie in the IMAX Cinema

After 2½ hours on your feet you might like to finish with a sit-down in their IMAX cinema. Most of their movies are really just TV documentaries – the kind of show that you might find playing on the Discovery Channel back home – but a few of them do come with 3D glasses.

The one I plumped for today was called Legend Of Apollo which promised to enter the fourth dimension. Unfortunately 4D turned out to be basically the same as 3D, except you get warm water sprayed in your face.

When the rocket took off the seat shook about a bit to simulate what the astronauts experienced at launch. They also blew some soapy bubbles around the auditorium to represent the smoke. Then we landed on the moon (more shaking), had a walk around the lunar surface (more shaking), then the rocket took off again (more shaking) and entered the earth’s atmosphere (more shaking) and landed in the sea (water got sprayed in my face).

To sum it all up then… pretty much every guidebook labels this place as being good for kids but I think it all depends on whether they’re interested in space and airplanes. If they’re not, then give it a miss. Adults will find the old phones and computers interesting because it’s a trip down memory lane for them, but I’m not sure kids will find an old Casio calculator watch quite as exciting.

They do have a very good gift ship for kids though. It’s kind of like a cross between Hamleys and the Gadget Shop, with all sorts of activity books, science toys and stocking fillers.

I’ve ranked the Science Museum as ★4 in my favourite London museums, ★6 in the best free attractions in London and ★10 in the best things to do with kids in London

It also appears in my one-day London itineraries with timings, one-day London itinerary for families, spending two days in London with the family itinerary and how to spend a week in London itinerary

What do you think? (6)

Ask a question, or share your experience of the Science Museum

Andrew I would like to know, based on your experience, if kids can still ‘press those buttons’ and conduct hands-on activities as was the case many years ago. I surmise in the technologically developed times children are living in today, such a museum is compelled to offer 3D movies and other modern day venues to keep up with the ‘Tates’. (reply)

↳Craig Hi Andrew, the last time I went there were still plenty of interactive displays and buttons to press. They weren’t quite as much fun as I remember them from my youth, though (maybe that’s because I’m over 40 now!). There are lots of interactive exhibits at the Natural History Museum as well. (reply)

M Spake How long do you recommend spending here? How long are the queues to get in normally? (reply)

↳Craig Hi M Spake. I think 2½ hours hours is plenty, but being a science museum there are lots of plaques, videos and explanations all around the place, so if you take your time perusing all of those then you can easily do 3 hours plus. And then you can add on another 45-60 mins in the IMAX cinema if you want to watch a movie at the end. The queues are nothing to worry about, I’ve never been waiting longer than 5 minutes. (reply)

ali Is it free. (reply)

↳Craig Hi Ali. Yes, it’s free to get in. They do try and get a donation out of you at the entrance, but that’s up to you. There are some extra things inside which you have to pay for like the flight simulators, IMAX cinema, and any temporary exhibitions that they might have going on. (reply)

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