This will start from 10am on Wednesday 15th July 2026 and will apply, to all visitors to the museum, and to museum staff and volunteers working at the museum. The ban expands the already existing smoking ban in all museum building to all areas of the fenced museum site. This also includes vapes, as a small number of such items have been found discarded around the site.
It will not apply to the concrete car parking area on the old taxiway approach to the museum.
Update 19.07.26 – following a visitor interaction today, we would also confirm that the use of portable camping stoves and single use barbeques is also not allowed on site.
The site conditions will continue to be monitored and we expect that the ban will not be lifted until there has been prolonged rainfall across the local area and the museum site.
We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause but we need to do as much as possible to protect the exhibits, visitors and our infrastructure at this time. We hope that everyone will comply with this decision.
