About
The Silverstone Museum stands trackside at the circuit that has become the home of British motorsport, in a converted wartime hangar on the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire border. It opened in 2019 after a substantial conservation and fit-out supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and it tells a story that begins not with racing but with the Royal Air Force: Silverstone was a bomber training airfield, and its perimeter track and runways were what made the circuit possible.
The transition is the museum's best material. In 1947 a group of enthusiasts held an unofficial race around the abandoned runways — the so-called Mutton Grand Prix, which acquired its name from a sheep that strayed onto the course — and it went well enough to persuade the Royal Automobile Club to stage the first post-war British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1948. Two years later, on 13 May 1950, the circuit hosted the opening round of the very first Formula One World Championship, watched by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and won by Giuseppe Farina in an Alfa Romeo. Everything that British motor racing has since become traces back to those runways.
Inside, the galleries are slotted beneath the hangar's wartime trusses so that the building's origins remain visible above the exhibits, and the route moves from RAF history into racing culture. The collection ranges across cars, motorcycles, trophies and personal effects — Barry Sheene's 1979 Suzuki with his leathers and helmet, Nigel Mansell's British Grand Prix-winning Williams from 1992, James Hunt's BRDC gold stars, and a grand prix signing-on sheet carrying the signatures of Senna, Schumacher, Mansell and Hill on a single page.
It is also, deliberately, a hands-on museum: visitors can operate a wind tunnel, take the controls of a Wellington bomber simulator, climb into a replica grand prix car and test their reactions against the standards a racing driver has to meet. Exhibits are set at varying heights and some are tactile, so that blind and partially sighted visitors can engage by touch. The museum opens daily for most of the year with reduced days in winter, and tickets are cheaper booked in advance than on the door.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Book online in advance. Tickets are noticeably cheaper than on the door, and child tickets are only sold in advance.
- Check for current promotions before booking — the museum has run seasonal offers admitting children aged fifteen and under free.
- Weekday closing is an hour earlier than at weekends, and last admission on weekdays is at 15:00, so an afternoon arrival can leave you short.
- Check the circuit's event calendar before travelling. Access, parking and hours all change on race and test days.
- Allow at least two and a half hours. The interactive exhibits take much longer than visitors expect and are the best part of the museum for families.
- Do not skip the airfield galleries at the start. The RAF material is genuinely good and it is what makes sense of everything that follows.
- Circuit tours and behind-the-scenes experiences are sold separately from museum admission and must be booked ahead.
- The Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation at Paulerspury is about seven miles away and pairs well with this for a day on British motoring engineering, though it is appointment-only.
Highlights
The Wartime Hangar
The museum occupies a Second World War hangar from RAF Silverstone, and the building has been conserved rather than concealed: climate-controlled galleries are slotted beneath the original trusses and gantries, with rivet lines and structural steel still visible overhead.
It is an unusually honest piece of museum architecture, and it makes the central argument of the whole place physically obvious — that British motor racing was built, quite literally, on the infrastructure the RAF left behind when it abandoned its bomber training airfields in the late 1940s.
RAF Silverstone
Before the racing there was a bomber training station, opened in 1943, where crews converted onto Wellingtons before joining operational squadrons. The museum's opening galleries cover that period properly rather than as a preamble: the airfield's construction, the aircraft, the training regime, the accidents that killed a great many trainee crews, and the abandonment of the site after the war.
A Wellington simulator lets visitors take the controls, which is a more effective way of conveying the aircraft's demands than a display case.
The Mutton Grand Prix and 1948
In 1947 a group of enthusiasts ran an unofficial race around Silverstone's derelict runways, an event remembered as the Mutton Grand Prix after a sheep wandered onto the course and was hit. Shambolic as it was, it demonstrated that the site would work, and in 1948 the Royal Automobile Club staged the first post-war British Grand Prix here on a course marked out with straw bales and oil drums.
The museum tells this improvised origin story with genuine affection, and it remains one of the more endearing beginnings in international sport.
13 May 1950
The inaugural round of the first Formula One World Championship was run at Silverstone on 13 May 1950, attended by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth — the only time a reigning British monarch has attended a grand prix — and won by Giuseppe Farina in an Alfa Romeo 158. The museum treats the date as the hinge it was: the moment a British airfield circuit became the starting point of the world championship that has dominated motor racing ever since.
Photographs, entry lists and material from the meeting are displayed together.
Collections
The collection covers the history of Silverstone as an airfield and a circuit, and of British motorsport more widely. Holdings include racing cars and motorcycles spanning the post-war decades, among them Formula One machinery associated with British grand prix victories and significant racing motorcycles; drivers' and riders' equipment including helmets, overalls, leathers and trophies; documents and ephemera including entry lists, signing-on sheets, programmes and circuit records; photographs and film covering the circuit from the 1940s onwards; and material relating to RAF Silverstone, the bomber training carried out there and the airfield's wartime infrastructure.
The museum also holds interpretive and interactive installations covering aerodynamics, engineering, race strategy, reaction testing and flight simulation, and material on the Motorsport Valley engineering cluster and the development of safety in motor racing.
From Airfield to Circuit
The galleries covering RAF Silverstone's wartime bomber training role, the abandonment of the airfield, the 1947 Mutton Grand Prix on the runways and the first British Grand Prix in 1948.
The Home of British Motorsport
Racing galleries covering the 1950 world championship opener and the decades since, with cars, motorcycles, trophies, personal effects and interactive engineering exhibits.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.