Smelly, dirty, messy, noisy, tasty. These are the common characteristics of 
the six museums on the shortlist for this year’s Guardian Family Friendly 
Museum Award. From the Highland Folk Museum in Inverness-shire, to St 
Nicholas Priory in Exeter, they provide sensual, hands-on experiences from 
which families emerge not only wiser, but grubbier.

Although the museums’ collections are diverse – from Great North Museum’s 
Egyptian mummies to The Potteries’ Staffordshire ceramics – not one of them 
is clean and clinical.

At Beningbrough Hall, an 18th century red brick mansion in York, hands get 
sticky from cooking edible insects. St Nicholas Priory, a Tudor town house in 
Exeter, asks visitors to help clean up, scrubbing their pewter plates with 
ground eggshells. The Herbert Museum in Coventry is proud of its pong; it asks 
visitors, ‘What did a medieval toilet smell like? Sniff here to find out.’ At 
Highland Folk Museum, visitors found chickens and ducks running around loose.

The Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award is the biggest museum award in 
Britain. A panel of judges, chaired by Jenny Abramsky, Heritage Lottery Fund 
Chair, chose the shortlist of six museums from over 200 nominated by 
thousands of visitors.

From the Award’s innovative shortlist, families will decide who’s this year’s 
winner. Each shortlisted museum will be visited, anonymously, by several 
families of all shapes and sizes. They will measure the museum against the 
Kids in Museums Manifesto – 20 ways to make a museum family friendly – 
compiled entirely from visitors’ comments. The winner will be announced in 
April. The prize is 500 Mammoth Activity Sheets, designed and donated by 
Foldedsheet.com.

So look out for noisy, dirty, messy families wandering around museums. They 
may possibly be undercover judges for the Guardian Family Friendly Museum 
Award.

The Shortlist:

Beningbrough Hall and Gardens, York 
Great North Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne
Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry
Highland Folk Museum, Newtownmore
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
St Nicholas Priory, Exeter

About Kids in Museums

Kids in Museums is a national charity supporting and driving change in Britain’s 
museums to make them more family friendly. Kids in Museums emphasises 
welcoming families to museums that have not had the opportunity to visit 
before. To find out more about Kids in Museums and their work, go to 
www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk.

Kids in Museums produces the Kids in Museums Manifesto. You can download a 
copy from the website, or order one free from 
[log in to unmask] or call 020 7022 1888.

Kids in Museums is very grateful for support from Museums, Libraries and 
Archives (MLA) and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.

Want to know more and get involved?

• Find out more about the Award, past winners and Kids in Museums from 
www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk

• Follow the progress of this year’s Award and the work of Kids in Museums on 
www.twitter.com/kidsinmuseums 

• Join our lively discussion boards at www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk

• Order your free copy of the Kids in Museums Manifesto, illustrated by 
Quentin Blake, from [log in to unmask]