Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery
165 Million Years Under One Roof
Nine galleries. One Georgian mansion. A journey from the bottom of a Jurassic sea to the streets of the modern city, scroll to travel through time.
Deep beneath your feet
Jurassic Gallery
Peterborough stands on dry land today, but the sea bed below is packed with clues from the past. Come face to face with one of the world’s finest collections of Jurassic marine reptiles — ichthyosaurs, pliosaurs and plesiosaurs that once ruled a tropical ocean.
Explore the gallery
When mammoths roamed
Ice Age Gallery
Watch the landscape transform through the great freezes and thaws — from warm-weather elephants and hippopotami wallowing in ancient rivers to the mammoths and woolly rhinos that once trudged across a frozen Peterborough.
Explore the gallery
First people, everyday lives
Archaeology Gallery
Around 500 finds unearthed from Peterborough’s soil tell a remarkable story — from prehistoric settlers to medieval townsfolk. Tools, treasures and traces of ordinary lives reveal how technology and history unfolded right here.
Explore the gallery
Art from captivity
Norman Cross Gallery
In 1796 the world’s first purpose-built prisoner of war camp rose just outside Peterborough. Its Napoleonic inmates left behind astonishing beauty — intricate bone models, automata and shimmering straw marquetry, among the finest works in the collection.
Explore the gallery
Not for the faint-hearted
The Victorian Operating Theatre
Step into one of the country’s last surviving historic operating theatres. Original surgical instruments, grisly practices, and the stories of those who lived, worked and died in the infirmary — including the tragic end of one of England’s pioneering radiographers.
Explore the gallery
From rural backwater to railway city
Changing Lives Gallery
Three centuries of transformation — the coming of the railways, two world wars and growing prosperity — traced through the lives of the people who turned a quiet market town into a bustling, multicultural modern city.
Explore the gallery
Nature on your doorstep
Wildlife Gallery
From grasslands to gardens, wetlands to woodlands — discover the surprising range of habitats thriving in and around the city today, and the rich diversity of plants and animals that call each one home.
Explore the gallery
Always something new on the walls
Art Gallery
Spanning three rooms on the ground floor, the Art Gallery hosts an ever-changing programme of temporary and touring exhibitions — from local talent to nationally renowned artists, across every form of art.
Explore the gallery
The story continues — with you
Community Gallery
A bright, open space in the heart of the museum where community-curated projects and evolving exhibitions give a home to the city’s own stories — the newest chapter in a 165-million-year tale.
What’s on in the Community Gallery