I live locally to Newcastle Upon Tyne and our main city museum, The Hancock, has always been a source of interest and pride to me ever since I was a child. The museum was recently closed for a long time undergoing a major make-over which was badly needed to help the building and exhibits fit in with the new cultural aims of the North East. The museum is now managed on behalf of Newcastle University who funded and directed the redevelopment process. As well as the overhaul of the actual architecture and the exhibitions the museum has a new snazzy name: The Great North Museum. It's 'Hancock' epitaph is tacked onto the end of this rather boring and generic new title. ...  Read the complete review

As this museum, since its reopening, has had awful reviews I thought that I would write a good one, as I'm sure many visitors, such as myself, have enjoyed their visits there. I visited the museum, now known as 'The Great North Museum; Hancock' during the summer holidays 2009, with my 8 year old niece and 10 year old nephew. I have been an avid museum visiter since I was a child. I used to get dragged around them by my parents, but I think that this helped me to enjoy them now that I'm an adult. I can enjoy looking at all sorts of things, so museums that others would find dull, I would probably at least be able to tolerate. My nephew and niece, on the other ...  Read the complete review

I thought it was very poor and would not visit again. Most items on display were either copies, reproductions, casts, models, or duplicates, including plastic fish and an elephant. If you like being spoon fed this is the place to go. The lighting was so bad is some cases you could not see the item on display. Coins were so far from the glass you could not see them. There is obviously a structural fault upstairs as items in cases wobbled alarmingly as people walked by. Lettering was already worn off of some signage. Why animals in a museum? It's not a zoo! not that they were there (quarantined). You could not hear dialogue from information points because it was so  Read the complete review

Where do I start? OK so after 3 years and £26 million was it worth the wait? Not in my opinion. Having visited with my 2 children only a matter of days from opening I, and they, were very dissapointed. OK, so it was in the middle of the school holidays and entryt is free therefore I was expecting it to be busy. And Boy was it Busy!! Although the queue was lengthy we were processed quickly and entered via the original frontage of a once fine museum. Upon entering the first thing that greets you is one of the 2 shops and therefore the kids were asking for keepsakes before we'd actually seen ...  Read the complete review

The Hancock is in its own way a quirky museum which houses a combination of permanent exhibitions (birds and Egyptians etc.) with temporary exhibitions. The museum has actually been closed for several years now in a massive restoration project which will see it reopen soon. Its reopening should be exciting since it is a great rainy day location which never gets old, not even the permanent exhibitions. I mentioned quirky because the museum has had an all manner of exhibitions from dinosaurs to Buffy the vampire slayer. The variety of these exhibitions helps contribute to its longevity and also makes it that bit easier to get reluctant kids into a ...  Read the complete review