Solent Sky

A wonderful, hidden gem. I'd driven past it a few times over the years and always thought there wouldn't be much to see in such a compact, unassuming industrial / warehouse type building. Fast forward to my 13 year-old taking a sudden interest in aviation and I thought it was worth a look. Behind the underwhelming entrance door lies a TARDIS-like space with a good number of aircraft including a Spitfire, a Schneider Trophy predecessor, a large passenger seaplane which you can board, a few military jets, a couple of bi-planes, some smaller propeller powered planes and a helicopter (or maybe two). There are great cutaways of piston and jet engines, a couple of relatively modern military cockpits that can be sat in and side rooms recreating WWII life more convincingly than others I've seen. The mini cinema is a treat, although it could be made more realistic by the introduction of plumes of smoke. There's a very satisfying Southampton focus on the wall based exhibits with, of course, a particular emphasis on Supermarine, the development of the Spitfire, the destruction of the city and the relatively short lived seaplane era. Despite being a maritime city Southampton and its near neighbours were, make no mistake, of huge importance in WWII aviation and the Battle of Britain but it's seldom celebrated or even mentioned, so it was good to see the information on display. While the compact layout doesn't offer an opportunity to stand back and view aircraft from a distance there's an air of intimacy in being able to move backwards and forwards between planes and to get closer to them than in other museums, and of course to easily revisit things that you may have missed or want to look at in more detail. The exhibits are laid out across four (three plus a mezzanine) floors with a lift servicing each and there's a natural flow to movement around the building which makes it easy to see everything. Accessibility is generally very good, although some exhibits necessarily have steps associated with them, and the volunteers when we visited were helpful and knowledgeable. The police and fire annexe is fascinating too. To address comments in older reviews, I suspect the curation has got better and better as the years have gone by. There are still a couple of areas where it appears there's some debate about what to do with gifted items but these are out of the way and barely noticeable. Ticket pricing I think is very fair for a museum which would take one to two, maybe even three hours to fully explore. It's worth remembering that larger, more expensive, museums have tens of thousands of visitors streaming through the doors to pay the bills. On street parking is available outside and if that's full it's a short walk to the large multistorey car park in Ocean Village. There are toilets, including accessible facilities, but no café or restaurant although hot and cold drinks are available to buy. This doesn't really matter as there are pubs, bars and restaurants within a five minute walk. If you have even a passing interest in aviation or are simply looking for something to do in Southampton for a couple of hours I'd strongly recommend this. We're very glad we went.