The Postal Museum
The Postal Museum (TPM) opened in central London in 2017. We tell the story of postal communication and its impact on a global society, a story which can inspire everyone to make richer and more meaningful connections in their lives.

Explore interactive exhibition galleries packed with intriguing objects, innovative inventions and ground-breaking technology that span 500 years of history and explore stories about communication today. Our Mail Rail ride provides unique access to real industrial heritage. Visitors can travel back in time on a tiny train through the tunnels of London’s hidden postal railway and delve into the nuts and bolts of Mail Rail in a hands-on exhibition in the original train depot. In The Discovery Room visitors can find out more about the postal service, research family history and study original archive material. Children aged 8 and under can have sack loads of fun learning through play in Sorted! The Postal Play Space.

Learning at The Postal Museum
Learning and engagement is central to our mission and our ambition is to reach an increasingly diverse audience and enrich their lives. Winners of the Accessible Visitor Experience of the Year award at the 2019 VE: Forum Visitor Experience Awards, accessibility and inclusivity is integral to our approach. We collaborate with our audiences to put communication and connection at the heart of all our activity.

Here’s an overview of learning activities led by our Exhibitions, Access and Learning team.

Schools programmes
Developed in consultation with teachers and educational partners. Schools programmes include interactive sessions, special projects, SEND sessions, outreach visits, and digital resources. Most visits are from Primary schools and Early Years settings, with a smaller number of visits from Secondary and SEND schools. We offer a programme of themed Home Ed Days and our creative projects with FE and HE colleges bring new voices and perspectives into our collections. Our facilitators deliver learning across the curriculum with a focus on science, history and literacy. Our approach is flexible, adapting to support learning needs and inspire confident communicators in the future.

Family programmes
Our creative family activities bring our collections alive in school holidays and weekends for audiences of all ages. Developed with local families, activities focus on learning together and our facilitators encourage everyone to actively take part. Self-led trails link to themes and exhibitions for families to lead their own learning.

Community programmes
Over the past 7 years the aims of our community engagement programme have been to develop our audience (in number and diversity), widen access to the collection and inspire new groups with our objects and stories in innovative ways. We have engaged with a broad spectrum of audiences through initiatives such as Museums on Prescription, a wellbeing project, supporting the award-winning research project led by UCL, engaging with a group of socially isolated older adults.

Access programmes
Our access programme is delivered through a process of shared decision making and co-production with the target audience and we work collaboratively to remove barriers to engagement and meet their wants, needs and expectations. For example, our programme for autistic and neurodiverse people is co-produced by Ambitious about Autism and a group of their autistic Youth Patrons. This same collaborative approach is used to deliver our BSL programme for D/deaf visitors and the audio described programme for blind and partially sighted people.

Public programme
Launched in 2019 and in development, our public programme offers visitors new and inventive ways to connect with our stories and explore our unique site. From opportunities to get closer to our diverse collection in our museum store tours, to relaxing in underground yoga classes or taking a tunnel tour to discover one of London’s best kept secrets, our public programme has something for everyone.

Ask our team about…
As a new museum we are keen to learn, explore and test new ideas. We would love to share our experiences with you. You might have a question about one of our learning programmes or what it’s like to set up a new museum and develop new audiences, how we operate a tiny train, and our latest communication challenge – how to stay in touch with our museum audiences during closure.

We can’t promise first class delivery, but we will send everyone that asks a question a postcard from us. Yes. A real postcard

To find out more about The Postal Museum visit postalmuseum.org