Southend Central Museum & Planetarium

I recently went along to the planetarium with my young daughter who’s obsessed with the stars.. it was amazing. It was hugely informative and the speaker very engaging. The staff were so passionate and full of wonderful information and history about the local area and very helpful. I really enjoyed our visit and will be back for another very soon. Highly recommend. A fantastic place to drop into. Note: we didn’t buy ticket on that occasion but were lucky and staff were very accommodating.. however to be safe a simple phone call ahead to reception to reserve a ticket would be advised.

I've been meaning to visit our museum for years... chance would have it that I was on foot today... I felt transported... such interesting objects and information... the building was cool and all was peaceful inside... was easy to forget the busy world outside and step back in time for a while.... thoroughly recommend.

Small museum located away from beach side. The history of radio is the main attraction of the museum. It's free and a planatarium is paid.

Well worth a visit, especially as it is free to enter. The museum concentrates on Southend's history throughout the ages showing you archaeological finds from the local area. It's exhibits are set up in a way that you are walking through each period of human history from neolithic stone age, Iron age Bronze age, Romon etc. They travel up the time line through to modern day and have a spectacular collection of period radios all manufactured in Southend. We went to see the planetarium which you do have to pay for but is also well worth the price of admission. There are toilet facilities and an area for you to eat your own packed lunch as there isn't a café and the tea/coffee machine was switched off. There is a car park not 2 minutes away with plenty of parking. We went on a Sunday and had the museum basically to our selves.

Totally free and delicate museum, it's very small but detailed.

The Southend Central museum is a small local museum dedicated to the history and wildlife of the Southend area.Although rather small and old fashioned, the museum contains a lot of interesting artifacts and little rooms you can look into to discover how people in the area lived over the years.There's also a temporary gallery, at the time of visiting (July 2018) it contained an exhibit dedicated to veterans, full of fascinating photos and places where you can stand to listen to the people tell their stories.The museum is run by elderly staff who are very welcoming and friendly.Both the main part of the museum and the temporary exhibit are completely free to enter, so I strongly recommend making a small purchase in the gift shop to support the museum and keep it running.

A lovely museum to visit. Free to enter. A few things for the kids to do, rope knots, crayon rubbings, make a radio with the felt shapes, a question booklet to fill in and our favourite was measure yourself against the animals wall. I would definitely recommend a visit. Warning, there are a few stairs to enter (Maybe 3) I just carried the buggy up the stairs. Also there is a planetarium upstairs which is chargeable. We did not visit, so can't comment.

Fascinating local museums and Southend is no exception especially with its new Saxon King display. 1500 year old artifacts discovered in Prittlewell in 2003. The planetarium, the only one outside London, is well worth waiting for

Walked in and was greeted with an astonishing performance taking us around the museum exploring the history of the Prittlewell Prince.Lovely place, free to enter