Artefacts ranging from contents of Stephen Hawking's office to a rubber duck used to choose landing sites on a duck-shaped comet can now inspected by the public.
The new Hawking Building, named for the late scientist and minutes from the centre of Wroughton, is the sustainable and accessible new home for world-famous Science Museum Group Collection;
Over 300,000 historic items were carefully moved into the new facility, ranging from historic mobile phones to an early 20th century Glasgow tram, and from 1.3-tonne Sno-cat, the first vehicle to complete a motorised crossing of Antarctica, to vintage medical equipment and penny farthing bicycles.
Regular guided public tours, school trips and researcher visits now enable unprecedented public access to the collection, with visitors invited to walk among towering objects and glimpse behind the scenes of a working museum store.
Sir Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group, said: "I am thrilled to announce the Hawking Building as the name for this remarkable home for the world-famous objects in our care.
"Having been inspired at the Science Museum as a child, Stephen became a great friend to the Science Museum Group and this is a fitting way to celebrate that life-long relationship and our acquisition of the extraordinary items from his office that will inspire others for generations to come.
"The first public tours of the Hawking Building mark a significant milestone in the transformation of how we research and share our internationally significant collection with the world.
"Thanks to generous funding and support from HM Treasury and DCMS, more than 300,000 historic objects have moved to this state-of-the-art facility that sets new standards in environmentally sustainable collections care."
Swindon Borough Council leader Cllr Jim Robbins said: "To have such world-class exhibits and objects displayed in the borough is a real feather in our cap and is very much in keeping with our Build a Better Swindon mission which aims to provide vibrant and accessible heritage, arts and culture facilities.
“The opening of the Hawking Building is a vote of confidence in Swindon by the Science Museum Group and, as a council, we will be looking to see how we can strengthen those links even further.
“In the meantime, I would encourage local people to visit this amazing multi-million pound facility for themselves and enjoy a guided a tour. Having seen it for myself, it really is something to behold.”
The opening is the culmination of the £65 million One Collection Programme.
Public tours of this building have begun, with tour dates in 2025 now available to book, allowing visitors to get up close to the Science Museum Group’s world-class collection of objects from science, technology, engineering, and medicine.
Led by an expert guide, visitors on the guided tours will encounter incredible, world-changing objects in their new home and discover their stories, while also enjoying stunning views of this vast facility and seeing Science Museum Group staff at work caring for the collection.
The facility has been inaugurated as the Hawking Building, in recognition of the lasting impact of Professor Stephen Hawking’s scientific research and public engagement, and his long-standing relationship with the Science Museum Group.
As a child, the future cosmologist drew inspiration from regular visits to the Science Museum. Much later, he lent his communication devices for display, gave lectures and debated with Nobel Prize laureates in the museum, and even served as a guide for a day.
In 2021 the extraordinary contents of his Cambridge University office were acquired for the nation by the Science Museum Group through the UK Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.
More than 1,000 objects, including his communication and mobility equipment, have since been studied and cared for in the Hawking Building, with staff and researchers uncovering the everyday and extraordinary stories within them.
Science Museum Group Head of Collections Jessica Bradford said: "The most critical thing is that whilst the Science Museum Group has had this site since the 1980s and store collections here, we have had intermittent public access through things like open days and motor shows, this is really the first time in the group's history that we have had a sustainable public offer, and it's certainly the first time that people have been welcomed to this site to see such a large number of objects from our collection.
"We've moved 300,000 objects from London to this site, and we've moved 20,000 objects within the site into this building, which was very much designed with people and objects in mind.
"In terms of what the public offer will be like, the building blocks of that are continual research access throughout the year. Anyone with an interest in a particular object can request access to see it through our website. They can come in person and they will be looked after by our access team. We have a brand new collection study, so in most cases objects will be brought to them.
"They can inspect the objects and, if they've got particular research questions, we hope that actually seeing the objects in person will make all the difference, but we can also do virtual visits. So, if you are on the other side of the world, it's possible for our team to arrange a video call whereby you can look at an object via a screen and ask questions about it.
"That's something new that this building enables, and we think it's going to be popular. It's also worth stating that when we say 'researcher' we genuinely do mean anyone with an interest in our collection. Some of those will be academic researchers but lots will be people with a personal family connection to our collection, or anybody studying for inspiration or simply following their curiosity."
Tickets to the guided public tours of the Hawking Building are £27.50. Concessions (Child aged 13-15, student, unemployed and disabled) and local residents (Postcode must begin SN1, SN2, SN3, SN4 or SN5) tickets are £16.50. Ages 7-12 go free. Strictly ages 7-plus, and recommended age is 12-plus.
For further information or to book tickets, people can visit scienceinnovationpark.org.uk/visit-us/public-guided-tours.
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