We are free to visit and open to everyone, providing a warm welcome to visitors of all ages, including children and family groups.
The Story tours – National Lottery Open Week
As part of National Lottery Open Week we will be offering special tours of The Story on Sunday 16 and Sunday 23 March, including site tours and behind-the-scenes strong room tours.
Sunday 16 – Sunday 23 March 2025 | Booking required
Home Educators’ Day
Bring the history of County Durham to life in a full day of activities just for families with children who are home educated or not currently in school education.
Wednesday 2 April 2025 | Booking required
All Change! A New Exhibition
All Change! is a colourful new exhibition focusing on the impact of passenger railways on north-east life, and will be coming to The Story in May 2025.
Coming May 2025
Small Stories (Under 5s) | Term Time Only
Bookings are £2 per family (max 2 children per family & no cap on adults).
DLI Friends drop in
Last Thursday of each month | 10:00 – 14:00 | Free | Drop in
The DLI Friends are volunteering at The Story on the last Thursday of every month. Drop in between 10:00-14:00 and have a chat with this extremely knowledgeable, passionate and friendly group. You may want to find out more about your local regiment, or your family who were in the DLI. The DLI Friends is a charity run for, and by, people who support and work with the DLI Collection. For more visit: https://dlifriends.com/
Wellbeing Walk
Tuesdays | Meet at 10:00 | Approximately 1 hour
Move walking – Free weekly wellbeing walks for all abilities to help develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Afterwards, stay for some social time in our Café.
Exhibitions
Our exhibition space is free to visit and shares stories of County Durham’s varied and exciting past throughout its history.
Featured Exhibition | Welcome to our County: The Children of Yesterday and Tomorrow | Free | Saturday 2 November 2024 – Spring 2025
Spotlight Talks
Fridays and Saturdays | 11:00 and 14:00 | Free | Drop in
Find out more about our collections and exhibitions in a free to join, bitesize Spotlight Talk. In these informal talks, The Story Team will share their insights into a story or theme in the exhibition using objects on display. If the times don’t work for you then don’t worry, you can always get the same information from speaking to our amazing team of staff and volunteers.
Access our Archives
Access to all collections is in purpose-built facilities on the first floor of the new building, with interactive screens and 16 computer terminals for accessing digital content, a secure research area (the ‘collections room’) for viewing collection items from the strong rooms and a separate reception area for enquiries relating to historic civil registration. On demand access to the Historic Environment Record (HER), the collections database and popular records such as church registers and newspapers will be available digitally in our ‘Search and Discover’ space.
While many collection items will be available ‘on demand’ some, including larger objects, will require several days’ notice.
Teacher Advisory Group
Our Teacher Advisory Group provides invaluable guidance and helps answer questions on how we can continually improve our offer at The Story to best suit local schools. Run in partnership with Durham University Museums and Special Collections, it also gives teachers the chance to network with like-minded colleagues from across the county, helps to shape our developing offer and you will be the first to hear of any opportunities to take part in pilot workshops or funded projects. Please get in touch with our learning team if you’d like to come along by emailing learning@thestorydurham.org