Winchester City Museum

Here’s a thought: Hampshire is packed with excellent museums from Portsmouth to Basingstoke, from the New Forest to Petersfield. Many of them are free and are increasingly trying to welcome families with young children. Are you envisaging your rampant three year-old toppling over cabinets of antiquities? It doesn’t have to be that way. Try instead a vision of you both enjoying sorting artefacts, colouring pictures of local objects, picking out your favourite butterflies. By lunchtime you might even feel happy to have spent time doing something fun while learning together.

Baby Hampshire will be offering a guide to the best local museums in every part of the county over the coming months, not just what there is in Hampshire, but also a beginners’ guide to how to get the most from a visit to a local museum, art gallery or heritage attraction. Let’s start our trail with Winchester.

Winchester City Museum is situated in the heart of the city, right next to the cathedral. It’s my favourite type of museum because it offers a properly integrated family visit, with activities for children throughout the galleries. I’ve been going with my children for two years and there are always new trails and quizzes to follow or activities to keep them busy, active and interested.

You can visit the museum in any way you wish, go to one part or all of it, and of course, this is the best kind of entertainment as the museum is completely free.

Don’t be put off by the fact that the museum is spread over three floors as there is a lift for pushchairs, or you can leave your buggy in reception and climb the stairs. We always start our visit by collecting our ‘trail’ at the reception. Once we’ve picked up our clipboard we go straight to the far end of the ground floor. There we have our obligatory toddler toilet stop and then use the glass lift to go right up to the top of the museum.

Once on the top floor you’ll be in the gallery which gives a comprehensive history of the city from the Stone Age through to the Roman era. Some of the activities are aimed at older children, but there are step-up stools and you can do the puzzles and sorting games together.

The middle floor of the museum tells the story of Winchester in the Middles Ages. There are sounds (a horn), more archaeological sorting activities, some ‘brass rubbing’ (it’s magic to see the picture appear if you’re three years old!) and a colouring table with pictures of medieval ‘face jugs’ to colour in.

We now jump forward a few centuries to the Victorian era which is situated on the ground floor, where there is a new collection of the best dressing-up clothes you’ll find anywhere. The outfits all go with the Victorian shop fronts and each have a matching hat. Although they are rather too big for toddlers, that didn’t seem to bother my two year-old, who dressed up and wandered round to the lovely mock-up chemist’s shop and pretended to serve behind the counter. There’s a shape matching game, more colouring and nice windows to press noses against and guess what’s displayed inside.

One of the things I really love about this museum is that all the activities are relevant to the objects exhibited. Each activity has been carefully thought out to provide an opportunity for the parent and child to talk through what they are looking at and to go off and find things in the display cases. There is also a chance, while they are busy, that you might be able to read a few boards and discover a little bit about Winchester’s history yourself.
 
The Winchester City Museum has baby changing facilities and a space for breast feeding on the ground floor. Visitor services manager Sher Kent stresses that families with babies and toddlers are very welcome here.

Of course it’s unlikely that your two year-old will pick up much in the way of a grounding in local history. However, they will have fun and hopefully learn that museums are friendly places. And you’ll have been somewhere different - somewhere warm and dry where the biting wind won’t bother you.

So what’s stopping you?

A guide to visiting museums confidently with babies and toddlers

·Museums are not cathedrals. Don’t think you have to keep your toddler silent with hands by their sides, staring in rapt fascination at a collection of Roman coins. Apply the same rules as you would in a supermarket - no running, screaming or accidental shoplifting. Happy chatting and high spirits are going to be expected in any museum which welcomes children.
·Don’t ever feel that a museum is not an appropriate place for a pre-school child. I always think, "We are just as entitled to visit as anyone else". Try not to enter with an apologetic spirit, instead ask as you go in:  "Are you child friendly? What can the children do here?"
·To find local museums which have activities for children try www.24hourmuseum.org.uk 
 
Winchester City Museum Information:

Open Nov – Mar, Tues to Sat 10 – 4, Sun 12 – 4.  Closed on Mondays. Admission FREE.

www.visitwinchester.gov.uk

Where to find the museum: From the High St shopping area, turn left into Market Lane and then right into The Square. The City Museum is located at the far end corner on the left.