Banish the January Blues with fascinating free experiences at the Science and Industry Museum

As we welcome 2026 after the excesses of the festive season, January often arrives with a renewed focus on tightening belts and sheltering indoors from the bleak midwinter. Thankfully, the Science and Industry Museum offers a vast array of free activities for budget-conscious families throughout the month, from iconic engines and the thundering sounds of industry to hands-on science and rare objects across its warm, welcoming spaces.

Visitors to the recently reopened Power Hall: The Andrew Law Gallery can immerse themselves in the sights, sounds and smells of engine-driven ideas and industry. Brand new displays tell the stories of the people whose skills and resolve have harnessed energy to shape the world, from the Industrial Revolution through to an environmentally sustainable future. Alongside the monumental machinery, budding engineers can get hands-on with interactive challenges that test problem-solving skills through building, hammering and even crawling.

Over in the Textiles Gallery, visitors can discover Manchester’s deep links to cotton and meet the machines, people and ideas that transformed the city into the world’s first industrial epicentre. The gallery also explores the complicated relationship between industrial and human exploitation on a global and local scale, and the thundering atmosphere of a working mill comes to life through daily demonstrations of historic machinery.

The journey through the city’s legacy of innovation broadens with an assortment of breathtaking displays in Revolution Manchester. See one of the first Rolls-Royce motorcars, learn about Manchester’s influence on the creative industries through objects such as the iconic ‘G’ from Granada Television, as well as scientific breakthroughs by scientists including Salford-born James Joule. The gallery also looks to the future, with the sticky tape dispenser that played a central role in the isolation of graphene, the thinnest, strongest and most conductive material ever discovered. Meanwhile, regular demonstrations of a working replica of the legendary Manchester ‘Baby’ computer – the first computer to store and run a program – offer an accessible introduction to the early days of computing, while daily shows bring the city’s story of science meeting industry to life.

In the interactive gallery Experiment, visitors can lift a car with one hand, create a hurricane or use heat vision to explore the world around them. Curious kids can also take part in weekend Mini Movers sessions for children aged five and under, or pick up a free Construction Pack to explore the museum site in their own way.

For a first-hand glimpse of a world-changing scientific environment, the intimate ongoing exhibition Stephen Hawking at Work offers unprecedented insight into the legendary physicist’s professional life through fifteen selected objects from the acquisition of his Cambridge University office, with highlights including a wheelchair he used, a rare copy of his PhD thesis and a wager made with fellow scientists on the mysteries of black holes.

Beyond the galleries, the reopening of the museum’s historic Upper Yard alongside Power Hall has created more than 1.4 acres of free space to relax, reflect and explore. Accessibility across the yard has been transformed while retaining the industrial character of the site, marking the first step towards a future accessible walking loop through two centuries of history and new connections to the surrounding area.

With its blend of fascinating fun, big ideas, working machinery and hands-on discovery, the Science and Industry Museum banishes the January Blues with a month full of finance-friendly experiences.

Plan your visit HERE.