Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens

Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens

Open to the public

Museum or gallery in Tyne and Wear

517 artworks

Plan a visit

More about

Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens contains a wide range of collections which are of local, regional and national importance. These have been growing since early in the 19th century, and are still expanding. Particular strengths are local history, including shipbuilding and coal mining, natural history, geology, glass and pottery made on Wearside, 19th- and 20th-century art, works by L. S. Lowry, archaeology and ethnography. Highlights of the collection on display include the largest collection of Sunderland lustreware pottery in the world, the Londonderry glass table service (made on Wearside in the 1820s) and a very rare fossil Gliding Reptile (Coelurosauravus) which is 250 million years old. The Winter Gardens houses an excellent botanical collection of over 2,000 plants and trees, displayed to their full splendour in naturalistic settings under a single-span 30 metre dome. For the gardener or botanist there are many fine examples of the world's most interesting and exotic plants, such as the primitive plants displayed around 'Fern Gully' which include Tree Ferns, Cycads, giant horsetails, and Michella figo, a relative of the Magnolias. Visitors can see growing examples of many important plants from around the world, such as tea, coffee, sugar, citrus fruits, date palms, bananas, pineapple, mango, the vanilla orchid and gingers, as well as a number of plants that are used to make important medicines.

Find prints, books, gifts and exclusive product ranges in the Art UK Shop. Purchases directly support public collections across the country

Visit the shop

Burdon Road, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear SR1 1PP England

01915 532323

Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens is open Monday–Saturday 10am–5pm and Sunday 2pm–5pm. Free entry. Paintings from Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens are occasionally on loan to support other exhibitions held in the UK or abroad. If you wish to know the location of a particular painting, please contact the Museum.

http://www.seeitdoitsunderland.co.uk/sunderland-museum-winter-gardens