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Practically everywhere you go in the UK, you’ll find some kind of a museum. It might be a behemoth of a place that covers a multitude of topics across thousands of years, or it may be a little unsuspecting building full of treasures relating to a very specific interest. But the thing that all great museums, big or small, have in common is that they educate, entertain and enlighten us. And that’s the common thread that runs through Time Out’s new guide to Britain’s best museums.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be shining a spotlight on each brilliant venue that made the cut. So far, we’ve covered Ramsgate’s Micro Museum, the Gladstone Pottery Museum, Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum and Margate’s Crab Museum (our number one). Now, let us introduce you to number five on the ranking: M Shed.
M Shed opened on Bristol Harbourside back in 2011. It’s housed inside an 1950s transit shed – its name is taken from the actual name of the building when it was used as a warehouse by the port authority. Step inside and you’ll find three galleries full of thousands of artefacts telling Bristol’s story from the Bronze Age to now. Those galleries are split into three themes: Places, People and Lives.
In the Places gallery, you’ll see how the Bristol landscape and demographic has changed over millennia with artefacts like vintage buses, dinosaur remains and a mural mapping out its suburbs. In the Life gallery, visitors get a glimpse at the daily experiences of people who have called Bristol home and in the People section, displays focus on the dozens of things that Bristolians have created, challenged and influenced. Standout exhibits include the statue of slave trader Edward Colston, which was famously toppled during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, one of Banksy’s early works The Grim Reaper and the Mayflower, the world’s oldest surviving steam tug.
This year, the museum is hosting a major retrospective in honour of animation studio Aardman’s 50th birthday. Cracking Exhibition, Gromit! 50 Years of Aardman in Bristol will display rarely‑seen models, sets and secrets from the creators of Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Morph, and trace the stop-motion studio’s history back to when its founders first moved to Brizzle in 1976. It opens at M Shed on Saturday June 20 and will run until Sunday September 13.
🏛️ Check out Time Out’s full guide to Britain’s best museums in 2026 here.
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