Team Wint rating – 9 out of 10.
We signed off 2022 with a visit to Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. We’ve been meaning to go here for ages and we’re so glad we did finally make it. What an amazing place!
At £36 for a family annual ticket (for four people and as many visits in a year as you want) this is really good value. We spent 3.5 hours there (including a quick 20 min lunch) and that didn’t’ include additional films you could watch for an extra charge or walking around the extensive grounds (the weather wasn’t great).
We started off in the First Light Pavilion, a new building housing the main exhibition. This is a seriously impressive place. The exhibition follows the story of Sir Bernard Lovell, how Jodrell Bank came to be and the work that has been carried out there, right up to the present day. There are animated story panels which tell you all the basics and then further written boards if you want to know more. There are interactive activities everywhere; plenty to engage little ones. We spent over an hour in this room and the girls happily worked their way around independently (lovely for us adults to explore on our own). They kept popping back to tell us something exciting or interesting they’d seen. One thing to note is that this room is permanently dark to aid seeing all the lit up screens. There was one child there who got pretty distressed as it was so dark so they had to leave early. Perhaps it’s not the place to come with children scared of the dark!
We then headed to watch two free shows in the Space Dome which gave us more information about the Lovell Telescope and our place in the Universe.
Next stop was feeding time. We brought our own food which we ate in the cafe area but we were impressed with the reasonable prices in the cafe. Coffees and hot drinks were c£3 and soup and a roll was £4.95. There were plenty of sandwiches, pastries, paninis and pasties/pies and children’s lunchboxes were available; the cakes looked impressive too! There are plenty of picnic areas on site for those that bring their own food and there is the undercover Comet Lodge which is an indoor picnic area with wood burner. We only discovered this after we’d eaten!
After a quick play on the playground, we went to see the Lovell Telescope up close. There were really interesting information boards all round the base of the telescope and some hands-on science-related activities to play with too; the Whispering Dishes were great fun. The telescope was moving whilst we were there which was amazing to see.
If that wasn’t enough, there is then another exhibition to go into: the Space Pavilion. This explains in more detail how the telescope works using radio signals. Again, there were plenty of hands-on activities and videos to watch. We enjoyed the temporary Apollo 17 exhibition which showed re-mastered photographs of the 1972 moon mission.
There is also an arboretum and 35 acres of land to explore. I must admit we didn’t venture into these but we’ll definitely do this on our return visit. And go back we definitely shall. This is really accessible science for children to understand and opens up a whole world of jobs out there for scientists. Our two thoroughly enjoyed it, as did us grown ups. Peggy only didn’t give it 10 out of 10 because some of the interactive information boards moved on too quickly for her to read. She happily stayed to read them a second time but “they should have better timings” apparently!
