Walk in Bristol
with Richie
M Shed Museum
5 Nearest Attraction
0,2 mile - 3 min walking)
2. Arnolfini
(0,2 mile - 3 min walking)
(0,3 mile - 6 min walking)
4. Queen Square
(0,3 mile - 5 min walking)
(0,4 mile - 8 min walking)
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Click to the postcode to check the map .
Nearest Public Toilet
M Shed
(Community Toilet Scheme)
Accessible
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Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd, Bristol BS1 4RN
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Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd, Bristol BS1 4RN
Official Website:
https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/
Tel : +441173526600
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M Shed is a museum in Bristol, England, located on Prince's Wharf beside the Floating Harbour in a dockside transit shed formerly occupied by Bristol Industrial Museum.
The museum's name is derived from the way that the port identified each of its sheds.
M Shed is home to displays of 3,000 Bristol artefacts and stories, showing Bristol's role in the slave trade and items on transport, people, and the arts. Admission is free.
The museum opened in June 2011, with exhibits exploring life and work in the city.
In its first year, 700,000 people visited the new museum.
Opening times for 2019
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Monday Closed
Tuesday 10am–5pm
Wednesday 10am–5pm
Thursday 10am–5pm
Friday 10am–5pm
Saturday 10am–5pm
Sunday 10am–5pm
Richie's opinion :
" If you better want to get to know Bristol, the M shed is your museum.
You will find almost everything here about Bristol’s past and present, you can learn about the history of the city’s formation and development from its beginnings to the present day.
Lovely, interesting and very good recreational opportunity, Don't miss it."
About M Shed Museum
Free entry!
See amazing film and photographs, listen to moving personal stories, encounter rare and quirky objects and add your own memories of Bristol through the interactive displays.
From prehistoric times to the present day, M Shed tells the story of the city and its unique place in the world.
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Opening Times
Monday Closed
Tuesday 10am–5pm
Wednesday 10am–5pm
Thursday 10am–5pm
Friday 10am–5pm
Saturday 10am–5pm
Sunday 10am–5pm
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Parking
There are two car parks nearby at The Grove (BS1 4RB) and Wapping Wharf (BS1 4RH). There are five disabled spaces at The Grove and three next to Brunel’s Buttery. There are four accessible spaces in the Wapping Wharf car park.
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Facilities
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You’ll find:
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A café
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Toilets throughout the museum
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Lockers – these are temporarily unavailable to help stop the spread of COVID-19
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Unisex babycare room
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A buggy park
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Wudhu facilities
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Two studios which can hold up to 120 people are available for hire
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Events suite which can seat 240 people and is used for conferences, private events and weddings – available for hire
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Bristol Places
The Bristol Places gallery focuses on the physical and dynamic city – the ways that people have shaped and experienced it and continue to do so.
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The Working Exhibits
Read about some of M Shed's biggest exhibits which are outside M Shed and can be seen even when the museum is closed.
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Treasures in store
L Shed, adjoining M Shed, contains thousands of items from the industrial, maritime and social history collections.
History
On the quayside outside the museum are four electrically powered cargo cranes built in 1951 by Stothert & Pitt.
Three of these cranes are operational and operate some weekends.
A short distance to the west is a much older crane, the sole surviving operational example of a Fairbairn steam crane.
Built in 1878, also by Stothert & Pitt, it was in regular use until 1973 loading and unloading ships and railway wagons with loads up to 35 tons.
It has been restored and is in working order, operating on some bank holidays and the Bristol Harbour Festival.
The Bristol Industrial Museum closed in 2006 and was transformed into the M Shed.
The conversion was designed by Lab Architecture Studio.
It was expected to cost £27 million including a grant of £11.3 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Another £1.39 million of HLF funding was announced in April 2011.
It reopened in June 2011. In its first year, 700,000 people visited the new museum.
Bristol Harbour Railway offers train rides along the quayside on selected weekends, using restored steam locomotives and rolling stock.
Moored in front of the new museum is the collection of historic vessels, which included the 1934 fireboat Pyronaut and two tugs: John King built as a diesel tug in 1935, and Mayflower, the world's oldest surviving steam tug, built in 1861.
There are three main galleries: Bristol Places, Bristol People and Bristol Life, each telling a story of Bristol, and containing a mixture of media.
Among the 3,000 exhibits of material on display are models of Nick Park's Oscar-winning animated duo Wallace and Gromit, a 10m long mural by local graffiti artists, and pink spray painted record decks (1980) courtesy of Massive Attack, the trip hop trio from Bristol.
The band's experimental sound would play a big part in the formation of the city's club scene in the 1980s and 1990s.
On display are newspaper clippings from the city's landmark political episodes, including a victory for the fight against racial prejudice in 1963 when a group of West Indian workers led a bus boycott after the Bristol Omnibus Company refused to recruit black workers.
A centrepiece of the galleries is a huge mural entitled Window on Bristol, painted by local artists Andy Council and Luke Palmer.
It depicts Bristol's buildings in the form of a huge graffiti-esque dinosaur.
There is also a temporary gallery displaying changing exhibitions throughout the year.
Aviation, the museum also contains: a Mignet HM.14, a piece of the Bristol Brabazon, a one-third scale model of a Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine, a Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 engine and a Bristol Proteus Mk.255 engine.
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