Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds

In Brief.

The Thackray Museum of Medicine is a modern museum in a former Victorian Workhouse that has also served as part of St James's Hospital, which is adjacent. The museum includes a street reconstruction that reflects on the sanitary and health challenges facing Leeds during the Industrial Revolution, and a collection of displays on the history and development of medicine. The museum is trying to target quite a broad demographic, and there should be something here for most ages.

The museum entrance.

What's Here?

The Thackray Museum of Medicine occupies two floors of an imposing Victorian building.  The lower floor includes the cafe and exhibition spaces that focus on local history, whereas the upper floor has more of an emphasis on the development of medicine.

The lower floor starts on Disease Street, a reconstruction of a Victorian street in recently industrialised Leeds, highlighting the health implications of high density city life before sewers. If that wasn't off-putting enough, there is also an exhibition on early surgical practices that makes you grateful to live in the era of antibiotics and anaesthetics. 

Operating theatre reconstruction

The largest space on the upper floor considers major innovations in medicine, from anaesthetics to imaging, in a collection of compact (bed sized) but informative displays, inviting visitors to decide which are the most important and reminding them of how challenging things were before. The upper floor also has a number of smaller spaces including an exhibition on a medical products company and medicine in warfare illustrated with some recent experiences.

Overall, this is a compact and focused museum that is worth seeing, though perhaps alongside other things in Leeds if you are making a day of it, such as the Royal Armouries Museum or the City Centre. 

Practicalities.

Distance from Manchester Town Hall: 47 miles

Drive Time: 90 minutes.

Price: $$

Parking: Pay and Display onsite parking

Food and Drink: There is a cafe in the museum; I had a satisfactory coffee and cake, and a quirky flatbread for lunch.

Retail therapy: There's a small shop in the museum, mostly targeted at kids, including books with a medical theme.

Child Friendly: In some way the museum seems quite targeted at kids, and there was a school trip there on my visit, though some exhibits are not for the faint hearted.

Toilets: Yes.

Do it justice in: 90 minutes.

Inside-Outside: 100:0

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