Category × County
8 Best Museums In Nottinghamshire
The National Holocaust Centre and Museum heads this list on rating, and it is the one entry where the age conversation has to happen at home rather than in the car park. The other seven are easier company: Nottingham Industrial Museum, Newark Air Museum, Green's Mill and Science Centre, City of Caves underneath the city, National Justice Museum in the old courthouse, National Civil War Centre - Newark Museum up at Newark. Eight entries is thin for a county of this size, though the names carry more weight than the figure does, since several of them are national collections rather than local ones.
Top museums in Nottinghamshire
Showing 1–8 of 8
MuseumsNottingham Industrial Museum
MuseumsThe National Holocaust Centre and Museum
MuseumsNational Justice Museum
SightseeingNewark Air Museum
AdventureCreswell Crags
MuseumsGreen's Mill and Science Centre
MuseumsNational Civil War Centre - Newark Museum
AdventureCity of Caves
Shortness is not really the problem here. Range is. Machines, law, caves and mills, with very little aimed squarely at the under-fives, so the sensible move is to start from whatever your child already asks questions about. Six of the eight record outdoor space, which is high for museums, and Creswell Crags carries no indoor flag at all, so plan that one as a day spent outside and dress accordingly.
Museums in Nottinghamshire: FAQs
How young is too young for the Holocaust centre?
That decision belongs at the kitchen table, not the entrance. Our records tell you only that The National Holocaust Centre and Museum is the highest-rated entry on the page and carries both indoor and outdoor flags; they say nothing about what any particular child can handle. The museum publishes its own guidance on age, and reading that before you go is far better than arriving and improvising. If you are unsure, go without the children first.
Is Creswell Crags really a museum?
It is filed here, but the flags say something different from the rest of the list: no indoor marker, outdoor space recorded, which points at a site you walk around rather than a building you go into. Treat it as an outdoor visit with a museum element and dress for the weather rather than for a gallery. That also makes it the entry most likely to be spoiled by a bad forecast, so check the sky and the venue's own page in that order.
We want one place that will fill a whole afternoon.
Newark Air Museum and City of Caves are the two that stretch, and they stretch in opposite directions. An aircraft collection works on scale, so even a young child who understands none of it gets something from standing next to the machines, and there is ground to cover. A cave system underneath a city works on atmosphere and a story, which suits a child who listens. Pick by which of those two your family is, and do not try to do both in a day.