The Smethwick Engine
The world's oldest working steam engine, built by Boulton and Watt in 1779, its water-lifting still demonstrated daily.
The oldest working steam engine on earth stands on the ground floor here: the Smethwick Engine, built by Boulton and Watt in 1779 to lift water back into the Birmingham Canal at Smethwick, its water-lifting still demonstrated daily and the whole thing run in steam on a handful of days each year, in the city that lit the Industrial Revolution. That is the right way into Thinktank, not because it is a great museum by world standards, but because it pairs Birmingham's industrial inheritance with four floors of exhibits you pull, crank and test with your hands, inside the glassy Millennium Point complex about ten minutes' walk east of the Bullring. The ground floor is the best of it: the full-size 1939 steam locomotive City of Birmingham, a genuine Second World War Spitfire hung from the ceiling, and the Railton Mobil Special that broke the world land speed record. For under-eights there is MiniBrum, a child-scale town with a workshop, a market and a station that the children run themselves while parents sit on the benches around it. Up on level 3 a roughly 70-seat digital planetarium projects in 4K; shows are short and cost extra (roughly £4 a head), go online a week ahead and are otherwise sold first-come on the day, and they do sell out in school holidays. Outside, the Science Garden adds thirty-odd large-scale experiments, included in the ticket. Be honest with yourself about who this is for: children under twelve. Adults visiting without them will be done in ninety minutes and will find it far lighter than London's Science Museum, which is free and several times the size. A family with children aged three to ten will fill three hours without effort, and on a wet Birmingham day it is one of the city's best options. Note that the price rises in school holidays and on the weekends that fall inside them, when an adult pays close to £22 and a child £13, and the halls are crowded in the morning; book on the official site even though booking is not compulsory, and arrive after lunch if you can. Practical points: open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Mondays in term time (bank holiday Mondays excepted) and open daily in school holidays. The last-hour ticket, 16:00 to 16:30, costs just £3 and is sold on site only, enough for a look at the Spitfire, the old engine and the garden. Lifts serve every floor so pushchairs are no trouble, the cafe has highchairs, there are lockers, and a prayer room is available on request. Moor Street station is about a ten-minute walk, New Street about fifteen, and drivers will find the paid Millennium Point multi-storey car park next door on Howe Street (2.1 m height limit).
The world's oldest working steam engine, built by Boulton and Watt in 1779, its water-lifting still demonstrated daily.
A real Spitfire hangs from the ceiling above a 1939 steam locomotive and a car that broke the world land speed record.
A child-scale town for under-eights that they run themselves, and the reason most families come.
Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG
Without children, no: it is far smaller and charges admission where London is free. With children aged three to ten and a wet day in Birmingham, yes: MiniBrum, the Spitfire and the planetarium fill three hours with no complaints.
It is not compulsory, but booking on the official site skips the ticket-desk queue in July and August, and remember prices are higher in school holidays. The planetarium is what genuinely sells out; shows go online a week ahead, so add one when you book entry.