Displays at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens

Pottery Gallery

The world's largest collection of Sunderland pottery, including examples of the famous pink lustreware, is on show in this gallery. Visitors can learn about what it was like to work in a pottery, and the techniques used to make and decorate Sunderland pots in this stunning display.

Time Machine

Weird, wonderful, wacky - the Museum's craziest collection! This gallery is full of visitors' favourite exhibits as well as many of the fascinating objects that have made their way into the Museum's collections over the years.

Coal

This display is a lasting tribute to nearly 200 years of mining in the East Durham coalfield. Focusing on the unique communities which developed there, the display re-creates the day-to-day lives of miners and their families.

Glorious Glass

Glassmaking in Sunderland has its origins in Anglo-Saxon times when coloured glass windows were made for St Peter's Monastery at Monkwearmouth, more than 1,300 years ago. This glittering display features highlights of the great range of glassware made during the last 200 years, when the glassmaking industry on Wearside led the world.

20th Century Sunderland

One hundred years of the history of Sunderland can be seen through the eyes of women. Watch four characters come to life in the video presentations, then experience their surroundings for yourself in four atmospheric room sets. Explore the themes of seaside, fashion, diet, cost of living, public entertainment and housing over the century. Find out how politics, convention and fashion have shaped and changed all our lives.

Worlds Alive

Find out about the huge variety of life that exists on the planet. Explore the themes of diversity, adaptation and extinction and see animals at home in a range of recreated habitats. Live insects, spiders, amphibians and fish are all part of the attraction.

Lost Worlds

Learn about the local geology of Sunderland and how the area has been a place of steaming swamps, a baking desert and a tropical reef. The sounds of lapping waves, roaring winds and bubbling swamps add to the atmosphere of a gallery where millions of years of history have been squeezed into one fascinating space.

Launched on Wearside

Find out about shipbuilding on the Wear between 1880 and 1950. The gallery shows not only the technical side of the industry but also looks at the life of shipyard owners, the workers and their families. Discover what made a Wearside ship, how it was built, who built it, where it travelled to in the world and what cargoes it carried.

Art Gallery

See fine oil paintings in all the splendour of a Victorian collector's private gallery. Many works by L. S. Lowry are also on display, together with a selection of paintings and watercolours from all periods.

Winter Gardens

This amazing glass and steel structure surrounds a world of plants in miniature. Come and experience a garden for all seasons, and discover the plants that feed, clothe and protect us in our daily lives including tea, coffee, sugar, citrus fruits, date palms, bananas, pineapples and mangos.

The Winter Gardens is home to over 2,000 of the world's most exotic and unusual flowers and trees. It also includes exciting water features and a stunning treetop walkway, from which visitors can look down on the plants below.