Curious collections
Quirky and
specialist museums in Oxford.
Beyond the Ashmolean: Victorian anthropological cabinets, Einstein’s blackboard, interactive story worlds, and antique music collections.
While the Ashmolean Museum rightfully claims global fame as Britain’s first public museum, Oxford’s smaller, eccentric collections offer some of the most fascinating cultural encounters in the UK.
The University of Oxford has amassed centuries of eccentric, specialized collections: from handwritten musical scores and historical scientific instruments to thousands of anthropological artefacts packed into towering Victorian glass vitrines.
Best of all, almost all of Oxford's university museums offer completely free admission. Here is your insider guide to unique institutions you won't find anywhere else.
Curious collections
Five singular stops,
for curious minds.
Victorian Wonderland
The Pitt Rivers Museum
Entered through the rear of the Natural History Museum, the Pitt Rivers is unlike any other museum on earth. Packed into dimly lit Victorian mahogany-and-glass display cases arranged by type (rather than by era or culture), its three levels hold over 500,000 ethnographic items: from Inuit kayaks and samurai armor to carved masks and an iconic Haida totem pole towering over the court.
Scientific Revolutions
History of Science Museum & Einstein's Blackboard
Occupying the Old Ashmolean building on Broad Street (the world’s oldest purpose-built museum building, completed in 1683), this jewel-box museum houses astrolabes, microscopes, sundials, and early penicillin apparatus. Its star exhibit is the framed blackboard chalked by Albert Einstein during his lectures on relativity at Oxford in May 1931.
Literary Immersion
The Story Museum on Pembroke Street
Designed for families, bookworms, and children of all ages, The Story Museum celebrates the oral, written, and cinematic art of storytelling. Highlights include the Whispering Wood with talking trees, the Enchanted Library with immersive sets from classic literature, and the 1001 Stories gallery celebrating world folk tales.
Centuries of Sound
The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments
Hidden away inside the Faculty of Music on St Aldates, the Bate Collection houses more than 2,000 historical musical instruments from the Renaissance to the modern day. You can see early harpsichords, Handel's contemporaries' woodwinds, and historic brass instruments, many of which are still played by scholars and visiting musicians today.
Natural Wonders
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Housed beneath a magnificent neo-Gothic glass-and-iron vaulted ceiling, this companion to the Pitt Rivers features towering T-Rex skeletons, Oxfordshire dinosaur footprints, and the world's most complete surviving soft-tissue specimen of the extinct dodo bird.
Editor’s note
Visitor access and opening days.
The Pitt Rivers Museum and Natural History Museum are open daily with free entry, though donations are warmly welcomed.
The History of Science Museum is closed on Mondays; check current weekend opening hours before visiting Broad Street.
Know before you go
The practical bit.
- Admission
- Pitt Rivers, History of Science, and Bate Collection are all free to enter.
- Best for rainy days
- Hours of completely indoor exploration right in the city centre.
- Family appeal
- The Story Museum and Pitt Rivers torchlight trails are huge hits with children.
- Reviewed
- 17 September 2026.
Sources & visitor information 4 sources
Compiled from published visitor information, rather than firsthand venue reviews. Check current hours and booking details before travelling.
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