🏠 IndoorEducationalBooking required
Facilities
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Kirkaldy's Testing Works is a Victorian engineering workshop on Southwark Street, a short walk from Tate Modern. Its centrepiece is David Kirkaldy's huge hydraulic Universal Testing Machine, which volunteers still run so visitors can watch metal bars being pulled apart. The museum is small and atmospheric, and the guided tours explain the history of materials testing in plain language, so a curious older child or a family who enjoys science and history can follow along. The site is run by a volunteer charity that also hosts hands-on STEM workshops for school and college groups. Visits are by scheduled tour on set dates, and places fill quickly, so families should check the calendar before planning a trip.
Tour dates follow a published calendar, with some months skipped (for example September when London Open House runs).
Stuff to take with you
The things people wish they’d packed for a day out like this one.
- Refillable water bottleMost places will fill it for free.
- Snacks that survive a rucksackCheaper than the café, and buys you twenty minutes.
- Wet wipes
- Small first aid kitPlasters solve more days out than anything else here.
- Lunch boxes
- I-spy book
- Hand sanitiser
- Sick bagsYou only forget these once.
- Loose changeLockers and old-fashioned car parks.
- Backseat organiser
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