9 OF THE UK'S...TOP MUSEUMS

The UK is home to a brilliant selection of vibrant, engaging museums - here's our pick, plus a great site to stay at!

ONE OF MANY things the UK does very well is museums, offering everything from vast venues packed with global treasures, to outdoor living museums that give a real taste of daily life in the past.

London is packed with options and you can spend days walking around all the best museums. But it’s worth seeing what you can find in the smaller towns and cities, too.

Reading Museum, for example, is home to Britain’s Bayeux Tapestry, painstakingly handstitched by Victorian embroiderers, while Derby’s Museum of Making is in what was the world’s first modern factory.

Here are nine of the UK’s best museums, with a great open-all-year site to stay at.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

Hampshire, England

Located within Portsmouth Naval Base, this museum is home to some truly iconic ships, which you can explore inside and out.

Learn the story of Henry VIII’s ill-fated Mary Rose, or step aboard HMS Warrior, the steam-powered jewel of the Victorian Navy, and HMS Victory, which served as Nelson’s flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Stay at… conciergecamping.co.uk

Natural History Museum

London, England

Arguably the best-known museum in the UK and open since 1881, the Natural History Museum is well worth a trip to South Kensington to discover the history of life on Earth. It’s a good idea to plan your ‘must-sees’ among the more than 80 million items in the collection. There are four zones to help you navigate, depending on your interests, from dinosaurs and mammals, to Earth’s geography and fossils. Take some time to marvel at the building itself; the terracotta facade (chosen originally to be resistant to the Victorian smog) is covered with sculptures of creatures great and small. Before you visit, check the special exhibitions and events, as these vary throughout the year.