What a great museum! Fantastic place to explore the local history of the incredible hat making industry. Fun for all the family, with great exhibits and interactives. Check the opening times / days to avoid disappointment.

what a splendid place the hat works is! a wonderful array of hats to see from all different times in recent history as well as from a wide range of cultures. i visited as a child and i saw the same little berries-and-cream fascinator from my first visit which was so exciting and splendid to me (assuming it is the same one ) ALSO very nice that it's free now? i remember having to pay the last time i went so it's nice to get to see all the wonderful joyous hats for free. very fun to try some of them on to (although me and my friends did arrive in our own hats in order to be on theme.) thank you hat works love you hat works!!!

A small museum but very interesting with enthusiastic staff. There was a school visit at the time of my visit and it was lovely to see how engaged the children were with the hat making process. Some working machinery for tours, all safely behind glass partitions. A small shop area selling some very reasonably priced hats (not made at the museum) and some souvenir items. An hour and a half well spent.

I received a warm and friendly welcome by the staff when I visited and found the museum to be interesting and informative. Unfortunately I was limited for time so only had an hour to look around, I think 2 hours would have been better to take in all of the details. It's very rare to find any places to visit without an entry charge so thank you for providing this quality museum for everyone.

Very family friendly, engaging floor of hat displays and a floor of machinery, a nice hour-long experience. Clean, well lit, with activities for kids, and a very attractive visual design. As a museum it needs a bit of improvement - very hard to get any information on the things you're seeing, and the reference numbers on many of the hats have already fallen off etc so where there were information panels it was hard to match the hats to the entries. The thematic display of hats by material is visually engaging, but as there's limited dating on any of them you miss the opportunity to learn anything about hat fashions from any time period, or how they changed over time. Surprised not to see much mention of the RSPB which originated in Manchester as a campaign to reduce the use of feathers in hats etc - an opportunity for an interesting collaboration? It would have been good to be able to access a tour or similar additional information - I've been looking on the website periodically for months but there's been nothing, so I ended up just visiting the museum without.

If you like fashion or victiorian engineering (they have working hat making machines here) good way to spend 2 to 3 hours. Cafe is fab and a good deal too. Maybe not for repeat visits as nature of exhibits does not lend itself to change. Lots of hat dress up for kids too.