Egypt and Sudan Gallery
Mummies, coffins and everyday finds from Kahun and Gurob, among the best Egyptian collections outside London.
DrPhoenix — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Manchester Musuem — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Anthony Parkes — CC BY-SA 2.0
Behind a red-stone Gothic front on the University of Manchester campus sits one of the largest ancient Egyptian collections in Britain: mummies, coffins and everyday objects from the workers' towns of Kahun and Gurob, dug up by Flinders Petrie in the late nineteenth century. The museum was founded by the university in 1867, moved into Alfred Waterhouse's present building in 1888, and now holds around 4.5 million objects, making it the country's largest university museum. You walk in without a ticket and without booking. Children head straight for the Fossils and Dinosaurs gallery on the ground floor, where a cast of the T. rex 'Stan' is posed mid-stride among the mounted skeletons and Victorian taxidermy. Up on Floor 2 is the vivarium, live tropical frogs behind glass, some of them critically endangered species the university breeds here. The £13.5 million 'hello future' redevelopment, finished in February 2023, added a South Asia Gallery in partnership with the British Museum and a Chinese Culture Gallery; both are really about migration to Manchester rather than antiquities, and are better for it. Families have it easy: lifts reach every floor, there is space to leave buggies and lockers beside the Main Hall, and a café on the ground floor. Of particular note for Arab visitors, there is a prayer room open to everyone with mats and ablution facilities, something rare among Britain's free museums. All galleries are free; only the main temporary exhibition needs a free timed booking. Open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-17:00, Wednesdays until 21:00, Saturdays from 08:00 with a quiet, low-crowd first two hours. Closed Mondays except in August. The museum is on Oxford Road, about 20 minutes' walk south of the city centre or a few minutes on any bus heading down that road; Oxford Road railway station is roughly 15 minutes on foot. Pair it with the Whitworth art gallery ten minutes further south, then carry on to the Curry Mile in Rusholme for a halal lunch.
Mummies, coffins and everyday finds from Kahun and Gurob, among the best Egyptian collections outside London.
A running-pose cast of the dinosaur greets children in the ground-floor Fossils and Dinosaurs gallery.
Live tropical frogs on Floor 2, some of them critically endangered species bred here.
The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, M13 9PL
The WhitworthThe most celebrated thing in this gallery is not a painting but wallpaper: one o9 minutes walk4.4
Chinatown, ManchesterThe lavish gateway straddling Faulkner Street was made in China, packed into thr18 minutes walk3.9
Manchester Art GalleryIn January 2018 this gallery took John William Waterhouse's 'Hylas and the Nymph18 minutes walk4.7
Mamucium Roman FortThe first half of the word Manchester traces back to this patch of ground. A sma19 minutes walk4.1
Albert SquareManchester got its Albert Memorial up years before London did. The Gothic canopy20 minutes walk4.3Yes if it is raining or your children are under ten: the dinosaur, frogs and mummies will hold them for a couple of hours, and since entry is free nothing is lost if you leave early. If your one day is sunny and your children are teenagers, the Science and Industry Museum in the city centre is closer and more hands-on.
Not for the museum itself; walk in even in August, the one month it also opens on Mondays. Only the main temporary exhibition needs a free timed slot from the website, and weekend slots do run out during the school holidays, so book a few days ahead.