Milestones Museum

Highly recommend a visit here! Firstly when you consider that your ticket price gains you entry for the next 12 months it really is excellent value. The museum itself isn’t huge, you can spend a couple of hours max here. Interactive elements really make it! Visit the pub or use your ration card to get some sweets weighed out in the shop. Purchase some old pennies and enjoy the Victorian pier and play old fashion games. We particularly enjoyed this but I will say there was a lot that were out of order today unfortunately. The thing we enjoyed most at our visit this half term was the detective trail, taking you all around the museum solving clues and ticking off suspects until you got to the theif! Very nicely done and my son loved it. Not super busy either, especially for a school holiday. The shop at exit has some novel items in and lots of well themed old fashioned bits and bobs. Every person we came across working here today was extremely friendly and helpful! Liked their themed outfits!

Great museum with plenty to see. From a modern exterior, you walk into a piece of history. You can have an audio guide to find out more about the exhibits. There were a lot of people in costume walking around and explaining everything. The sweet shop lady and the barman were very friendly, in fact all the staff gave a friendly smile. You can purchase a ration book and get your choice of ration sweets from the sweet shop, a really nice touch. There are lots of vehicles from fire engines, trams, cars etc. Several places to eat, the garden pavilion or rooftop cafe. There is also a 1940s pub. Wander around the shops fully of memorabilia, take a walk along the pier complete with penny arcade machines... you can exchange modern money for old pennies. They teddy bear museum was very cute. There are also costumes for you to try on as you walk around and get the perfect selfie. A very enjoyable place to visit, made extra special thanks to the staff.

This is not an ordinary museum with exhibits in the glass cases (well, you will find some of these here), but very thoughtful and detailed historical reconstruction of the town through the time, with streets, shops, houses, garages, workshops, local transport, interiors with daily living attributes, seaside holidays attractions with working arcade games and the teddy bear museum. 🧸 Perfect for kids, as placing exhibits in context enables much better understanding of past life. You can enjoy a pint in the working pub, buy some old-fashioned sweets in the sweet shop, get some great coffee and cake or a proper breakfast/lunch in the cafe. The staff/volunteers are dressed up in the historical outfits, and they really care to give you the best experience. Tickets are not cheap, but at the moment there is a promotion on lovetovisit.com. There are discounts for kids, students, seniors, and disabled people who can bring their carer free of charge. The museum is fully accessible, with lifts, accessible toilets, and wheelchairs provided at the reception for anyone with mobility issues. Tickets are valid for the whole year, so you can revisit as often as you like and take advantage of different special events.

Really nice place to visit, my partner brought me here and I thought as it was indoors that it would be rather small and nothing special, but actually it was massive and there was so much to walk around and see and do, I was impressed but just the level of detail that had been put into everything (including man hole covers and drains in the roads) we spent far longer here than I expected was so overwhelmed by the effort that had gone into it. The staff were amazing and in dress, we even had a drink in the pub in the town. Definitely worth a visit young or old you won’t be disappointed.

Well worth the pennies, especially if you grab the special afternoon ticket deal (may be seasonal). You need a couple of hours, even with a distracted child. Loads of hands on elements, lovely coffee shop, fabulous range of things to see. Indoors for rainy days and recovering from sunburn!

We had a wonderful few hours in the February half term visiting this place we arrived at 11 and left around 3:30pm. We enjoyed the trail and we visited the sweet shop at the end to collect our ration and sweets. FYI - You can only select one sweet and not a mixture. We had fun. We enjoyed the old fashioned arcade but sadly many machines was not working after commenting on a fb thread apparently they have not been working for a very long time which is sad. On a good note you can revisit the museum throughout the year as many times as you like, which I think is awesome. We do look forward to to returning.

Went there with my son daughter and two grandchildren. We had an absolutely fantastic day everything was brilliant I would thoroughly recommend it full stop all the exhibitions all the activities mind blowing. It's somewhere where we will definitely go again. I am in a powered wheelchair but had no problems getting round. Some of the cobbles were a bit rough but don't let that deter you

I’ve come here as a child and now as an adult and it never ceases to be a fun trip out! There’s interactive bits for kids, nostalgic areas for adults and just a lovely environment. The staff are all so kind and welcoming. There’s a sweet shop, pub, music “shop”, school and many many more!! Totally recommend for all of any ages.

Milestones is located just outside the town centre and only a few minutes from Junction 6 of the M3. It is clearly sign posted and easily found. The museum is housed in a odern purpose built building that is looks deceptively small. It was opened in 2000, and still looks new. It is on two levels, well three but the middle level is just a cloakroom and offices I believe. The top floor (confusingly called Upper Ground) consists of the entrance lobby, toilets, gift shop and restaurant. The gift shop carries a wide range of products with a historical theme. These range from books to sweets and from toys to ornaments. The restaurant serves hot meals and snacks, and is moderatley sized. There are also a few tables in the entrance lobby where picnics can be eaten, as well as a picnic area outside. The main part of the museum is on the Lower Ground and this is accessed either by stairs of lift. The museum is fully accessible to the elderly or disable, and they even have their own electric chairs. However care should be take by those who have mobility problems as the streets are cobbled and in places there are tram tracks. The museum tells the story of how people lived and worked over the past 200 or so years. It is consists of several mock streets and buildings, along with real vehicles and other items. At the start of the museum you are given a personal audio guide and map. This provides commentary on all of the scenes and is a very good idea. It allows people to walk around at their own pace, even children, and deters them from just walking straight past exhibits. They are backed up by numerous films and display boards scattered around the exhibits. The tour starts in a mock up of an Taskers ironworks in Andover in the 18th century. It tells the story of how they made steam engines (not trains, but stationary engines and traction engines). From there the visitor walks out in to the High Street and can visit a saw mill, the station and all kinds of shops that would be found in a typical town at the end of the 19th or begining of the 20th centuries. For example there is a greengrocers, a co-op and even a working pub, where I was reliable informed you could by a pint of ale. Eventually the visitor goes through a time tunnel which takes them in to the 1930's or 40's. Again this is represented by rows of shops and vehicles of that era including a sweet shop where you could buy sweets of a bygone age. There are also two seperate areas for specialist collections and displays which don't fit into the main part of the museum. For example when I visited there was a display of how the home has changed over the decades since the 1920's. The final part of the museum is a mock up of the Thoneycroft factor which was a large employer in the area. This is a living history museum and there were several costumed interpreters walking around, who were more than willing to talki to visitors about the exhibits. Various activities for children are also arranged, such as dressing up in costumes, a victorian school lesson and as mentioned above buying sweets from the sweet shop. To be able to buy the sweets, the children had to have two old pennies and a ration card, just like in Granny's day! These were on sale at the entrance for 60p. The museum state that you need three hours to go round, well it took us three and a half hours, but could easily have taken more. This is a very good museum, well thought out and obviously designed with children in mind. If you plan to go, I can recommend it and would suggest arriving early and plan to spend the whole day there - you won't be disappointed.

I worked at this museum for a few months a while ago, and it's a good place to visit. It's in a lovely modern building and has an excellent range of historical exhibits, all in a recreated street scene from the past. A wonderful idea for a museum, and it's been executed wonderfully staff are friendly, the exhibits are detailed and interesting, and the whole thing provides a fascinating insight into Basingstoke and Hampshire's past. Admission prices are pretty high, admittedly, but I think in this case they are justified for what is an excellent, interesting and very worthwhile place to visit.

A good insight into days gone by, including street life and displays depicting some of Basingstoke's industrial past. We've visited several times now and our children are always keen to visit again. Vintage vehicles, street scenes, dressing up and old home technology are just some of the surprises as well as staff dressed in period costume giving brief history lessons.

We visited Milestones last year and were pleasantly surprised at how much they have managed to pack into a fairly small space. Our children are wre aged 5 and 9 and were engaged maost of the time - although by different things from the adults. There are a variety of exhibits from 2 eras. The victorian and 1930s so covers two of the KS2 history curriculum areas! while having enough 'we used to have one of those' exhibts for the not-so-aged parents. Throughout the dya there were tableaux by costumed guides/actors to expand on some of the exhibits. There is a snall hands-on area but it didn't really seem to fit with the rest of the museum. We had a snack in the cafe - not great. At £22 for a family of four its not a cheap day out but we spent several hours there - hanging on to the end so that the children got an opportunity to try on some of the costumes that are around and the children did learn soemthing about the times while having fun.