You can make your own Walrus badges and more at the farewell party.

Museum visitors are invited down the rabbit hole for an Alice in Wonderland-themed party to bid farewell to a city landmark for two years.

This week is your last chance to visit the Museum & Winter Gardens for two years | Sunderland Echo

placeholder image — This week is your last chance to visit the Museum & Winter Gardens for two years | Sunderland Echo

Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens will close on Saturday, August 29 ahead of a major £13.6m redevelopment - and won’t open again until late 2028.

People are invited to visit for one last time this Saturday with a fun-filled party.

Throughout the day, there’s the chance to enjoy:

Homemade cakes from Sunshine Cooperative
Taking part in a community art project with local artist Kerry Cook
The chance to write a ‘love letter to the museum’, sharing their favourite memories and reflections. These will become part of a special commemorative scrapbook celebrating the museum's story
Making Walrus badges
Viewing the new designs for the museum

In the Winter Gardens, there will be a final opportunity to experience the thought-provoking 404 Birdsong Exhibition, exploring our relationship with nature and sounds.

Meanwhile, Just Let Your Soul Grow CIC will be hosting a Mad Hatter's Garden Party in the Community Garden. Families can create their own nature crowns, help make a muddy mural and enjoy outdoor activities inspired by Alice's adventures.

Councillor Ciera Hudspith, Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Heritage at Sunderland City Council, said: "Our celebration event will have something for everyone as we say a temporary farewell to the museum we know and love.

“We’d like as many people as possible to help us mark this important milestone as we look forward to its exciting future and celebrate everything the museum means to us all across the city."

While the building itself is closed, Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens will continue to host a programme of events, exhibitions, learning opportunities and community activities, ahead of its planned reopening in late 2028.

The museum will be taking its handling collection, stories and expertise directly into communities across Sunderland through an ambitious outreach programme.

Activities will include family, young people and adult activities at Culture House Sunderland which opens 12 September, loan boxes for schools, pop-up museum events, workshops, and talks in community and partner venues.

Last chance to see Wallace and co for a while | Sunderland Echo

A team of Museum Redevelopment Champions is being recruited from the community to give opportunities for people to help shape ideas and research new content.

Residents can look forward to a wide-ranging programme of activities across the city, including the Women in Work: Pyrex project exploring Sunderland's industrial heritage through a co-created digital exhibition and podcast series; a Then and Now Photography Project capturing the changing face of Sunderland through the eyes of local people; and a new Sunderland Stories on Tour programme bringing collections, creative workshops and object-handling sessions into community venues across Sunderland.

Young people will be invited to work with artists to co-create public artworks inspired by the collections through an Urban Art Project and select themed objects and stories for community outreach boxes in the Museum Makers Programme.

Schools will continue to access museum learning through classroom workshops, assemblies, downloadable resources and free Museum in a Box loans, ensuring Sunderland's collections continue to inspire children and young people throughout the redevelopment period.

Visitors will even be able to go behind the scenes, with special hard hat tours offering a rare opportunity to see the redevelopment in progress, and learn about the specialist skills involved in conserving and transforming a historic museum building.

A new chapter

An artist's impression of how one of the new spaces could look | Submitted

The four-year redevelopment will transform the museum with :

*New ground floor galleries that showcase Sunderland's stories, people and rich heritage.

*A new entrance connecting the museum to Mowbray Park and a new community learning facility, The Growing Space, alongside improvements to the museum collections, interpretation, and visitor experience.

*Essential repairs and upgrades to the historic building, helping to secure its future for generations to come.

The £13.6m project has been made possible thanks to support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, alongside funding from Arts Council England, The Wolfson Foundation, Friends of Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens and other partners.

Throughout the closure, museum collections as well as the Winter Gardens Plants and Tropical Fish will continue to be professionally cared for through ongoing conservation, monitoring and collections management, with items relocated and stored where necessary.