Yorkshire Natural History Museum: Sheffield's newest museum plans major expansion just months after opening

Yorkshire Natural History Museum, on Holme Lane in Malin Bridge, has been showered with five-star reviews from visitors impressed by its collection of fossils dating back millions of years, including a number of dinosaur skeletons. It boasts an impressive 4.5-star average rating on Google reviews, with people praising the impressive displays and knowledgeable staff, and one happy visitor calling it perfect for ‘dino-obsessed kids’.

The museum boasts more than 10,000 specimens on rotating display, including a 175-million-year-old ichthyosaur fossil, a mammoth tusk and a fossilised crocodile skull. It has already grown to include what its founder James Hogg says is the only public palaeontology laboratory in Europe, where visitors can get hands-on experience as they learn how the experts extract fossils from rocks and analyse them.

Hands-on experience at ‘Europe’s only’ public palaeontology laboratory

It also has what he says is the best-equipped palaeontology laboratory in Europe, including X-ray technology, for use by the experts. There are plans to expand the museum’s research team, and the entire collection is being digitised and made freely available to people worldwide.

The museum’s team have also discovered a new species during excavations in Yorkshire, details of which they hope will be published later this year. Guided tours are available and a free lecture series has been launched featuring experts in the field of natural sciences.

The museum is already three times the size it was when it opened in August 2022 but James said he is looking at moving to a new site within Sheffield which will be ‘significantly’ larger. He said that would be a purpose-built natural history museum which would work in partnership with those in the south of England to help him achieve his goal of ‘making the sciences more accessible up north’.

Collection has grown to 50 times what it was when museum opened

“Our collections have already expanded since we opened to more than 50 times what they were. Only about two per cent of our full collection is on display at any one time, with the displays being rotated so visitors can see as much as possible of the collection,” said James.

“We’re looking to expand the museum very significantly at a new site within Sheffield where we want to have a purpose-built natural history museum working in partnership with the ones down south. It’s about making the sciences more accessible to people up north.”

James said the feedback from visitors so far had been ‘incredibly positive’, with people of all ages enjoying the museum. The museum is completely self-funded, with James saying it has ‘not yet touched a single public grant’. The only minor setback is that the vegan cafe has been forced to close temporarily until summer due to staffing issues.

Both the lab experience and the guided tours must be pre-booked via the website. The lab experience is suitable for people aged 12 or above, with a fossil club for younger visitors aged five to 12, who can get to grips with microscopes there and try out some lab techniques under supervision.

Tickets are still priced just £4 for adults and £2 per child, or £10 for a family of four, the same as when it opened, and James says he is keen to keep prices down to ensure it is accessible to all.

For more information, visit: https://ynhm.org.