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Oriental Museum
Lunar New Year 2023 celebration at the Oriental Museum, showing red lanterns with gold tassels

Access

The Oriental Museum is committed to being as accessible as possible for all visitors. 

 

Accessible parking

There are two designated disabled parking bays adjacent to the Museum entrance.  

 

Accessibility guide 

A full Accessibility Guide is available for Oriental Museum, featuring information on: 

  • Arrival information 
  • Accessible lifts 
  • Building layout  
  • Accessible toilets 

Assistance dogs are welcome in the museum and a water bowl is provided in the picnic area in front of the museum. 

A wheelchair is available to loan and walk and rest stools are available throughout the galleries for all visitors to use.  

View a gallery plan of the Oriental Museum before you arrive:

 

Oriental Museum 3D Virtual Tour

This project has been funded and facilitated by England’s first Destination Development Partnership – Destination North East England. A partnership between  NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Visit Northumberland and Visit County Durham, benefiting all seven local authorities. Destination North East England is funded by UK Government.

3D Virtual Tour

You can view the full 3D Virtual Tour of the Oriental Museum here.
Im age of oriental Museum reception desk and cafe seating area taken form the 3D virtual tour

Neurodiverse and dementia friendly  

We welcome neurodiverse visitors and those living with dementia.  

Many of our staff have received training in autism awareness and we have sensory bags available at the Visitor Services Desk. We host a regular series of relaxed family activities during quiet times at the museum.  Check our What's On page for more information and booking. 

Many staff have also received dementia awareness training and have become Dementia Friends.

We host a weekly dementia-friendly art group at the museum. Visit our Creative Age page for more information.  

Our visual stories may help you to plan your visit: 

We also have a range of sensory maps to help visitors during their visit.

Credit: Cara Zhao

Visually impaired and blind visitors

We welcome visitors with visual impairments. 

Tactile maps with Braille text which detail the layout of each gallery are available at the Visitor Service Desk.  

We also have large print maps of the museum and large print guides for the permanent galleries and special exhibitions.  You can download these guides in advance. Magnifying glasses are available from the museum reception desk for visitors to use during their visit.   

Visually impaired visitors are welcome to use our free Audio Descriptive Guide, created in collaboration with Blind Life in Durham. You can collect a handset and headphones from the Visitor Services desk and our staff can guide you on how to use it.

Why not enjoy an audio description of our famous servant-girl statuette? She is one of 25 audio-described sculptures from around the UK created by Art UK.  

 

Access for D/deaf visitors

We are working to improve access for D/deaf visitors.

There is a portable hearing loop at the museum reception desk.

In some galleries, we use video displays, most of which have subtitles in English. Written transcripts of the videos are also available in the galleries. Currently, the videos are not available with British Sign Language interpretation.

Videos from our Silk Roads gallery, together with transcripts, are available online. If you have any further questions, please contact us.