Saturday 14th March – Thursday 23rd July (Closed Fridays except for Derbyshire school holidays).
10am -5.30pm (last admissions 4pm)
10am – 4.30pm (last admissions 3pm)
Friday 24th July – Monday 31st August (Open daily)
10am -5.30pm (last admissions 4pm)
10am – 4.30pm (last admissions 3pm)
Tuesday 1st September – Sunday 1st November (Closed Fridays except for 30th October)
10am -5.30pm (last admissions 4pm)
10am – 4.30pm (last admissions 3pm)
In 2010 the Great Exhibition Hall was redisplayed with the ‘Century of Trams’ exhibition. The exhibition takes you on a fascinating journey through a hundred years of tramway development, from 1860 – 1960, taking in horse trams, steam trams and electric trams.
With funding from the Wolfson Foundation and Derbyshire Economic Partnership the exhibition now features new interpretive panels, audio sounds to represent each decade of the timeline and interactives for all the family to enjoy.
Take a look at the story of Blackpool’s trams which features some of the earliest archive film footage the Museum holds, or see the last days of the tramway systems from the 1950s and how the Museum came to be the home of these vintage vehicles. All contributing to our reputation as one of the best Derbyshire attractions for all the family.
Explore the work of ‘History Maker’ Michael Holroyd Smith, with exhibits, and previously unseen items from the archive.
Holroyd Smith was a pioneering inventor of the late 19th and early 20th century, who changed the course of tramway history in the UK and had far reaching influence in the engineering world.
Funded by AIM Biffa Award. See the History Makers website.
Built in the 1800s, the two storey Stephenson Workshop stands in the heart of the Museum. It was originally used as a smithy and wagon works for George Stephenson’s one metre gauge mineral railway to transport limestone from what was then Crich Cliff Quarry to kilns at Ambergate.
The building has been fully restored and is now home to a state of the art learning facility on the ground floor and the Stephenson Discovery Centre on the first floor.
The award winning Stephenson Discovery Centre is a vibrant space. Visitors can explore what there is to do at Crich Tramway Village, as well as how the Museum started, the history before the Tramway Village and how overcrowding in expanding towns and cities paved the way for in the introductions of trams to Britain in the 1800s.
Please note that our security measures include the fact that we may randomly request to search your bags on entrance.
Now connected to the Stephenson Discovery Centre via a glass bridge link, the Workshop Viewing Gallery gives visitors the chance to watch the Museum’s skilled workshop staff restoring trams and keeping our operating fleet in tip top condition.
The Workshop is vital to Crich Tramway Village as it restores and maintains trams to a high standard for our visitors to enjoy. Many of the trams that arrive here are in a sorry state of repair and it can take many years to restore each tram to the standard available for visitors to ride on.
Located behind the old Derby Assembly Rooms façade, the Survive and Thrive exhibition looks at the reintroduction of modern tramway systems in cities around the UK. Find your town on the wall map showing first and second generation tramways. This building also houses our temporary exhibition space.
Explore a selection of images from our photographic archive in this temporary exhibition running from September 2025 to the end of October 2026
In addition to owning over 80 trams, The National Tramway Museum houses a large collection of photographs taken during the original tramway era. These images were taken by well-known tram photographers such as W A Camwell, M J O’Connor, H B Priestley and R J S Wiseman. They give a superb insight into the history of the vehicles and the places they ran.
The original photographers were interested in capturing the trams in their environment, showing not just the tramcars but also the streets and the people around them.
This exhibition has been created to show a sample of our photographic collection. We have chosen images that vividly illustrate how Britain looked in the first half of the twentieth century. If you look closely, you will see the faces of people peering out of tram windows, children playing on cobbled streets, roads without cars and advertisements for long-forgotten products.
We hope you enjoy this exhibition and the glimpses it gives into everyday life in bygone Britain.
