We The Curious
science centre in Bristol, UK
We The Curious (previously At-Bristol or "@Bristol") is a science and arts centre and educational charity in Bristol, England. It has over 200 interactive exhibits, is home to the UK’s first 3D Planetarium and hosts over 300,000 visitors a year.
Their charitable mission is "to connect and empower people through sharing creative experiences which celebrate unknowns in science".
Every year they welcome thousands of visitors to their venue on Bristol harbourside, including schoolchildren, young people, community groups and other local charities and not-for-profits. They also work with local partners and schools to offer out and about activities, work experience programmes and bespoke opportunities for individuals who wouldn't normally feel like science is for them.
The centre was closed for over two years following a fire and consequent water damage in 2022, but reopened on 2 July 2024.
History
Background and origins
At-Bristol opened in 2000 as the successor to the Exploratory, a science museum and demonstration centre, founded by Richard Gregory in the former terminus train shed at Bristol Temple Meads railway station (later home to the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum). The Exploratory was a separate organisation and none of the exhibits or staff were transferred when Bristol's new museum opened in a city centre site as part of the regeneration of the historical Floating Harbour. The project was funded with £44.3 million from the National Lottery, Millennium Commission, South West of England Regional Development Agency, and a further £43.4 million from commercial partners (including a controversial donation from Nestlé) and Bristol City Council. The selection and design of exhibits were criticised by Gregory and other scientific adviser as being "totally inappropriate to the spirit of science".
“We The Curious” enters the record as science centre in Bristol, UK. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Curious, science and centre can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4812263. Authority coordinates are 51.451, -2.599. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022, 2024 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “We The Curious” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.