Top Manchester museums

Like footy? Yes? Then this is one of the best museums in Manchester for you the National Football Museum, housed in a suitably spectacular structure - the sloping, six-storey glass Urbis building near Victoria train station - houses some true treasures of the world’s most popular game. The museum was "transferred" from Preston to its Manchester home in 2001. You'll find more than 140,000 exclusive football artifacts inside, including programmes, boots, balls and paintings. Here you can see the 1966 World Cup Final ball, Maradona’s “Hand of God” shirt, and the only surviving version of the Jules Rimet world cup trophy. They also display the personal collection of Sir Stanley Matthews (1915-2000), considered one of the greatest English footballers of all time. It's free to visit the main exhibition and you can purchase credits to try out some of the interactive skill games in Football+. Maybe master the art of the one-two or have a go at football commentary. The museum’s president is Sir Bobby Charlton, England World Cup Winner in 1966 and Manchester United's most famous player. He's just had a stand named after him at Old Trafford.

If you're a Red Devils fan, find out more about your team at Manchester United's own museum. Charting the highs and lows of one of the most successful football teams in the world, they've got 130 years of history to show you. You can also book a tour of the stadium at the same time.

Manchester City also has memorabilia on show at a series of exhibitions and interactive displays around the stadium. Again, you can combine a visit with a tour of the stadium, including hosting your own press conference and sitting in the dugout.

Manchester museums are top quality and always impress visitors. One of the best of the bunch is the Museum of Science and Industry. It mixes technological displays and blockbuster exhibitions with trenchant analysis of the social impact of industrialization. Manchester's industrial past can be seen via live demonstrations of original weaving machines and steam engines in the Power Hall of the Textile Mill. In the Air and Space Hall, they've got planes, bikes and automobiles on show. One of the Key points of interest, the Power Hall, trumpets the region’s remarkable technological contribution to the Industrial Revolution by means of a hall full of steam engines. Some of the steam engines are fired up daily. There’s more steam in the shape of a working replica of Robert Stephenson’s Planet, whose original design was based on the Rocket, the work of Robert’s father George. Built in 1830, the Planet reliably attained a scorching 30mph but had no brakes. The museum’s version does, however, and it’s used on weekends, dropping passengers a couple of hundred yards away at the Station Building.

The buildings that house this free museum are historic in their own right. Five are listed (two Grade II) and one of these is the site of the oldest surviving passenger railway station in Manchester.  The museum set a Guinness World Record in August 2007, for the  largest-ever gathering of Daleks - part of a  Doctor Who: Up-Close special exhibition. Entrance is free, and they have plenty of activities going on for families, all-year-round. Visit the "what's on" section of the website for the latest news.

The university’s Gothic Revival Manchester Museum boasts a diverse collection spread over five floors. It’s home to displays on rocks, minerals and prehistoric life, meteorites, animal life, the human body and biomedical research. If you love Ancient Egypt, then the University of Manchester's collection is one of the best in the UK. It's where you'll find the mummies, and they've actually got three galleries devoted to Egyptology. The museum was founded in the 1880s; their collection focuses on archaeology (dinosaurs) and anthropology. Don't miss Maude -  a famous Tigon (a tiger / lion cross). After being in storage for 65 years, she's the first Tigon to go on display in a UK museum for a century. The Vivarium is dedicated to the conservation of reptiles and amphibians, with plenty of frogs, snakes and lizards.

Find yourself a bit of a travel enthusiast? Yes? Then take a step back in time to learn all about the world of transport. In the Greater Manchester area, the Museum of Transport is home to all things travel related. Enjoy learning all about transport while you spot over seventy buses on display - many of which are maintained in full working order. Find a large number of bus stop plates and see personalised badges of different conductors.The museum is in one of the city's earliest bus garages, now a listed building - and many of the vehicles have been borrowed for use in period TV shows and films. If you time it right, you might be able to see some of the vehicles in action - the working museum has regular event days and shows. Peruse through the published documents on local transport history, from manuals to periodical tables to more than 2,000 time and fare tables. The museum is every travel enthusiast’s dream!

This is simply one of the best museums in Manchester. A footbridge across the Manchester Ship Canal links The Lowry with Imperial War Museum North, which raises a giant steel fin into the air. It’s housed in a building designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind. This striking building in Trafford Park is designed to leave visitors slightly uneasy and help them process the feelings that war and conflicts can evoke (it's actually built on a former bombsite). The main permanent exhibition charts wars that Britain has been involved in since the First World War. Don't miss the Big Picture Show, which is blend of photographs and film and broadcast across the 27ft high walls in the main exhibition space. There are seven different films looking at issues such as the "Home Front" and "Children at War", running one an hour while the museum is open. Superb themed displays fill six separate exhibition areas focusing on everything from women’s work in the World Wars to the 9/11 attacks. The museum is home to a 23ft section of crumpled steel recovered from the World Trade Center wreckage - a haunting piece of the tragedy.

For one of the most impressive museums in Manchester, head to the People’s History Museum. The superb People’s History Museum explores Britain’s rich history of radicalism and the struggles of marginalized people to acquire rights and extend suffrage. These are ideas that developed out of the workers’ associations and religious movements of the industrial city which helped to shape the modern world. Housed in a former pump house and an ultramodern, four-storey extension, the galleries use interactive displays to trace a compelling narrative from the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 onwards. The galleries go on to explore the struggle for female suffrage, the Communist party in Britain and the working-class origins of football and pop music. It's free to visit this museum, where the motto is "ideas have always been worth fighting for". Using political objects to show the struggle for equality in Britain over the last 200 years, anyone interested in politics will find plenty of posters, cartoons and slogans depicting the radical fight for freedom. You'll find the largest number of trade union items and political banners in the world here. They've got more than 400, with the oldest dating back to 1821.

No 62 Nelson Street was once the family home of the Suffragette leader, Emmeline Pankhurst. She hosted the first ever meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union here in 1903, and now the house has been transformed into a museum and community centre aimed at promoting equality for women. It's free to visit but only open on Thursday and Sunday from 11am to 4pm.

Another museum which is free to visit and has limited opening hours (Tuesdays only, but you can pre-book other days) is this small museum devoted to the city's police force. From the early police prototypes, the Peelers, up to the force in the present day, they've got a collection of uniforms and other memorabilia to see in its base in an old Victorian police station.

You can visit the restored home of the Victorian novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell at 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester. Her famous works include Cranford and North and South, which have also been adapted for television, and you can visit the Regency villa, which is now Grade II listed. You can learn more about the writer, and her family circle, as well as visit the pretty gardens and take afternoon tea in what was originally the kitchen. 'We've got a house...it certainly is a beauty...I must try and make the house give as much pleasure to others as I can.’ - Excerpt from a letter from Elizabeth Gaskell to her friend, Eliza Fox (1850).

This is the only Jewish museum outside of London. The Grade II listed Victorian building has stood since 1874, making it the oldest surviving synagogue in Manchester. The Jewish community originally settled in the city around 1788, with 15 traders and their families setting up shop. The community was bolstered in the 1840s and 1930s by immigrants fleeing persecution, before the Holocaust survivors arrived in the late 1940s. This museum tells their story.

Dating back to the 15th century, you won't see many moated medieval buildings in the world (and this one is Grade II listed). Restored back to its Victorian heyday by volunteers, it's now open to the public on selected Saturdays twice a month. Kids can get dressed up in period costumers and live like a young Victorian.

Staying there