Portsmouth Natural History Museum — Attraction in Portsmouth

How truly excellent to have such a place locally to visit for seeing species of butterflies that would normally require longer to travel or going overseas. It's really beautiful to see such butterflies highly active because of having warmth, light and food. A good opportunity to study their wonderful and intricate design and behaviour. Take time to watch them and don't just rush through or you will be missing alot. Observe how they unroll their 'tongue' and reach deep down into the flowers for the nectar. Being disabled, the staff were kind, very helpful and informative which makes things alot easier and calmer. Add to this, having two disabled parking spaces right outside makes things less stressful as often we cannot visit places because of inaccessible parking or long distances between parking and the venue - not so with this museum. Definately a good move by PCC to support this venue, in these hard financial times it might be easy to cut back such places but that would be a very bad move. People need places to go and 'pause and reset' from this awful harsh world and see the real things that bring us joy and understanding - especially in winter.

We will be visiting again to see whatever species of these wonderful creatures are present. Thankyou to the...

Little gem of a museum just back from the seafront walkway, perfect for people of all ages, and a great way to spend an hour. Entry is free (donations box by the door), and there is plenty to see. They have a lovely collection and it’s informative and well presented. Absolutely loved it, I highly recommend popping in!

Getting there: there is parking on the seafront, plus a few small car parks dotted around but it can be very busy in peak summer. It’s a short walk back from the seafront, not far from the mini golf and model village.

On site: first up is the butterfly house. Beautifully designed, wonderful variety of butterflies and a puparium to see their development. My favourite part of the museum. There’s a dedicated “bee” room, with an active, visible, hive in the exhibition room. Fantastic to watch the bees so close. There is an area dedicated to local birds and wildlife which was very interesting, and another room with a massive dinosaur sculpture (and fossil exhibits too!). I spent about an hour in there and that was enough time to view all the exhibits and spend plenty of time in the...

Really impressed by this place. There's lots of parking out the front (on-street but as far as I can remember it was free and in plentiful supply). The museum itself is really interesting and varied, and is equally enjoyable for young visitors and older visitors. It's not huge, but that's to its advantage, as bigger museums can become a drag (particularly with kids, I imagine). We were in there for somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. The butterfly area is a lovely way to round off the visit. The staff are friendly and the entry price was very fair. Out the back is a big park with lake, and we enjoyed walking around there after our visit (even though it was chucking down with rain!). Well...