Bradford's National Science and Media Museum looks forward to opening new galleries for City of Culture 2025

The mahogany box he used to film family members parading around a garden in Roundhay is one of the cherished items in Bradford's National Science and Media Museum.

It’ll be one of many thought-provoking pieces going on display in two new galleries, which will open in time for Bradford's year in the spotlight as UK City of Culture 2025. The museum is now closed for the £6m “Sound and Vision” project, which will also see a new lift built and the foyer revamped.

Director Jo Quinton-Tulloch is hoping for over 500,000 visitors following a two-phase reopening starting next summer, with the museum hosting many events throughout 2025. Pre-pandemic the museum was getting more than 450,000 visitors a year - in 2021 to 2022 that fell to 139,000.

At over 20 years old the current galleries are “in desperate need of upgrading”. The new galleries will showcase the “very best” of their collections – including the original projector used in their Imax cinema - the first in Europe when it opened in 1983. She said: "Like many museums we have 90 per cent in storage and only 10 per cent on display. The key principle is that people are at the heart of the stories and we will be showcasing some key innovators in photography, film, television, video and sound technologies."

Incredible special effects in films are now taken for granted. The museum has a set of fangs used by one of the most famous ever Count Draculas - Christopher Lee - who starred in seven Hammer horror movies. The actor had a small vial in the roof of his mouth, which he’d press with his tongue to make the fake blood inside spurt out.

Meanwhile a “very small and uncomfortable chair” used by prisoners to have their mugshots taken will also go on display, as will iconic photographs taken by Herbert Ponting on Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1910 to 1913.

The galleries will also highlight local stories like that of the Baird TV factory just down the road at 8 Lidget Green. Today there's no sign of the factory which closed in 1978 with the loss of 2,200 jobs.

While the museum and two cinemas are now shut, the Pictureville Cinema and Bar will stay open seven days a week with a range of new releases, double bills and classic cinema. And it’ll celebrate its 40th birthday tomorrow with a new short film, showcasing favourite memories – including Pierce Brosnan flying in via helicopter to reopen the museum following a refurb in 1999 and Tim Peake’s spacecraft on display in the foyer in 2017.