Our history

The venue we occupy today was originally built as a railway goods shed and was part of Brunel’s Great Western network, within the heart of Bristol's historic docklands. Previously known as Cannon Marsh Goods Shed, it was part of the infrastructure of the Bristol Harbour Railway, an industrial railway that served the wharves and docks of Bristol. It was one of the first buildings to use reinforced concrete and showcases engineering innovation and contemporary design. It’s now Grade II listed. (Photo taken 1921, credit Bristol History Lover)

The railway yard was closed, and the site began to be used as a car park. It was known for car boot sales, driving lessons and the occasional illegal party!

Professor Richard Gregory founded the Bristol Exploratory, a visionary centre which enabled visitors to 'play with science'. It was the first of its kind in the UK.

The Millennium Commission project presented an opportunity for a new evolution of science centre along with the redevelopment of Bristol harbourside. This was funded by investment from the National Lottery Millennium Commission, Bristol City Council, the South West of England Regional Development Agency and other agencies. Prof Richard played a key role in the development of Explore At-Bristol, alongside many other instrumental figures.

The once-abandoned railway goods shed was transformed and our planetarium was built, helping to revitalise Bristol’s historic floating harbour. Bristol Exploratory closed, having welcomed over 2 million visitors in 15 years.

Explore At-Bristol (which soon became known as just ‘At-Bristol’) and the Planetarium opened in the building we occupy today. It was part of a new era of interactive science centres across the UK. We hosted hundreds of brilliant days out, and events including weddings and school exams, Brownies and Cubs sleepovers and free entry ‘Hello’ weekends. We developed partnerships all around the city and welcomed famous astronauts and TV presenters to our venue. We launched exhibitions, including All About Us, Our World, Animate It, Build It, Food and the Tinkering Space.

We hosted the Olympic Games on our Big Screen, welcoming thousands of people to Millennium Square.

Our planetarium was upgraded, becoming the UK’s first 3D planetarium.

We asked our city – our visitors, our staff, our partners, people who didn’t visit us – what they wanted us to be. People asked us to ‘be more challenging’, ‘take a stance’ and ‘be not just for kids’ – and to change our name! This gave us a mandate for change. We aimed to create a space that’s open, accessible and welcoming to everyone – where no question is ‘silly’, where all knowledge is valued.

We relaunched as We The Curious, with a new mission to ‘create a culture of curiosity’, guided by a manifesto of key pledges. Determined to tackle inequalities, and put people at the heart of science, we started to plan a major new exhibition based around people’s curiosity.

We set out on a question-gathering tour of Bristol. We visited every postcode, gathering over 10,000 curious questions from the people of the city. With the help of some of our community partners, staff and volunteers we whittled 10,000 down to just 7 final questions. These questions became the centre piece of our major new experience, Project What If. We worked together with our Question Askers and audiences to design the exhibition content.

Along with our city, we declared a climate emergency and pledged to be carbon net zero by 2030.

The COVID pandemic hit. Throughout the pandemic, we continued to work with our community partners across Bristol to realise ‘Make Space’, where each partner designed an exhibit, together with an artist, in response to the 7 Project What If questions. Our ground floor was transformed and new experience Project What If was built – all under COVID restrictions.

We reopened our doors following 14 months of closure due to the pandemic with Project What If, the first UK science centre experience all about the curiosity of a city. Our mission evolved to “connect and empower everyone through sharing creative experiences which celebrate unknowns in science’.

A fire forced us to close our doors again after 10 months of being open after the pandemic. All staff and visitors were evacuated safely, but the building sustained significant fire and water damage so a huge, comprehensive programme of repair and reinstatement work began. Our mission as a charity continued, and our teams pivoted to deliver activities out and about across our city. We visited schools, libraries, children’s centres, festivals and more.

Our Out and About programme continued across the city, including free School Takeover days. The building reinstatement work continued at pace. We created Plan 2030, a new strategic plan developed by the entire staff team, that maps out the delivery of our vision over the next six years.

During our two year closure, we delivered 300 free activities to 40,780 children, adults and young people in schools and communities.