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13 Best Museums In Glasgow and Strathclyde
Thirteen entries sit under museums here, and at least two of them are not museums in the way a child uses the word. Glasgow Science Centre is a building of levers and buttons. National Library of Scotland at Kelvin Hall is a library with a public collection attached. Both are worth a morning; neither behaves like a gallery. The rest run from the very large, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Glasgow Riverside Museum, down to a single-subject room such as Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre. Every one of the thirteen carries an indoor flag, so read the heading as a rough sort rather than a promise.
Top museums in Glasgow and Strathclyde
Showing 1–12 of 13
MuseumsScottish Football Museum
MuseumsScottish Mask and Puppet Centre
MuseumsScottish Maritime Museum- Dumbarton
MuseumsKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
MuseumsMcLean Museum and Art Gallery
MuseumsGlasgow Riverside Museum
MuseumsGlasgow Science Centre
MuseumsScotland Street School Museum
MuseumsNational Library of Scotland at Kelvin Hall
MuseumsThe Peoples Palace
MuseumsSt Mungos Museum of Religious Life
MuseumsClydebank Museum
Read the name, then read the entry, because this category is wider than it looks. If you want the classic version, big hall and big objects and nobody hurrying you, the two large Glasgow ones do that at a scale that absorbs a whole grey afternoon. If you want children pressing things rather than looking at things, the science centre is the entry you actually mean. Only one of the thirteen has any outdoor space recorded, so save these for the days the sky has already decided for you.
Museums in Glasgow and Strathclyde: FAQs
Is thirteen a lot for an area this size?
It is fewer than you would guess, and the shortfall sits outside the city rather than in it. Most of the thirteen are in Glasgow itself. McLean Museum and Art Gallery at Greenock and Scottish Maritime Museum- Dumbarton are the two that reach into the wider towns, and a smaller civic museum is exactly the sort of place to check on its own page before you build a day around it. Take this list as a good account of the city and a partial one of everything around it.
Where do we take a child who cannot stand still?
Glasgow Science Centre is filed here but works nothing like a gallery. The whole point of it is that children touch things and set them going, so a five-year-old who cannot be marched past display cases has somewhere to put the energy. Scottish Football Museum is the other entry with a subject a restless child may already care about, which does half the work for you. Keep the art gallery for a day when they are in a looking mood, or accept that you will do it in twenty minutes and go for lunch.
What is the odd one out on this list?
National Library of Scotland at Kelvin Hall is a library sitting on a museums list because that is the nearest label our records carry. It is a quiet, screen-and-archive kind of visit rather than a hall full of objects, which is not a criticism but is not what a family arrives expecting after a morning of big exhibits either. Look at the venue's own page rather than trusting the category heading, and go with an older child or not at all.
Does the weather change anything?
Barely, and that is the useful thing about this category here. All thirteen carry an indoor flag and only Glasgow Riverside Museum has outdoor space recorded, so a wet forecast takes nothing away from the day. It also means a bright morning spent on this list is a bright morning spent under a roof. Use these when the rain has made the decision, and keep the clear days for something with grass under it.