The Benty Grange helmet
A rare seventh-century Anglo-Saxon helmet topped with a gilded boar, one of very few in the world that match the Beowulf description.
An Anglo-Saxon helmet crowned with a small boar of iron and gilded silver, lifted from a barrow in the Derbyshire hills in 1848 and matching, uncannily, the warriors' helmets described in Beowulf: the Benty Grange helmet sits in a quiet gallery of a free museum on the edge of a Victorian park in Sheffield, and hardly anyone outside Britain has heard of it. That is the pattern here. The collection is bigger than the reputation. The building opened as the city museum in 1875, absorbed the neighbouring Mappin Art Gallery, then closed for three and a half years and reopened in autumn 2006 after a refit costing around GBP 17 million. The result is six permanent galleries plus a temporary-exhibition space, all on the ground floor, which parents with pushchairs will appreciate: Ancient Egypt with a genuine mummy; Beneath Your Feet for local archaeology; What On Earth! for natural history, where Spike the woolly rhino and a stuffed polar bear stand before a vast wall of wildlife; two galleries on Sheffield's industry, homes and people; and one of art connected to the city. There is also a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse and a play bus for small children. Honestly, this is not a museum to travel for. It is a museum for people already in Sheffield, and it is at its best on a wet day with children aged roughly five to twelve. Ninety minutes to two hours is plenty. Entry is free with no booking, and the museum suggests a GBP 5 donation. The Ambulo cafe is by the entrance, and upstairs there is a picnic space where you can eat your own food when school groups are not using it, a rare and useful thing that saves hunting for a restaurant. School-holiday and weekend crowds bunch between 11:00 and 15:00. Getting there: tram from the railway station to the University of Sheffield stop, then a 650 m uphill walk past the Arts Tower, or buses 51 and 52 from the centre. There is no museum car park; the nearest is Q-Park on Durham Road, with 25 percent off using a voucher from reception. Closed Mondays including bank holidays; Sundays open late and shut at 16:00. The park outside, with its small lake and bandstand, makes a short stroll afterwards if the weather allows.
A rare seventh-century Anglo-Saxon helmet topped with a gilded boar, one of very few in the world that match the Beowulf description.
Spike the woolly rhino, a polar bear and a whole wall of mounted wildlife: the room where children linger longest.
All the galleries are on the ground floor, with buggy storage in the foyer and an upstairs picnic space for your own food.
Western Bank, Weston Park, Sheffield S10 2TP
In good weather, no; spend the time in the hills. On a wet day, or with small children who have had enough of the car, it is an excellent free two-hour stop with a cafe and a picnic space for your own food, and it sits on the western edge of the city on the way out.
Reasonably well: the play bus, the roundhouse and the animal gallery keep them busy, and it is flat with buggy storage in the foyer and a lift to the first floor. Give it an hour rather than two, and avoid 11:00 to 15:00 in the holidays, when it gets loud.