The Cave is a hands-on museum of Video Gaming history, encompassing hardware, software, peripherals and related ephemera from the 1970s to the early 2000s. We have numerous games consoles, home computers, table-top electronic games and a handful of arcade cabinets, almost all of which are set up to be played and enjoyed by our visitors.
The Cave originally grew from a popular YouTube channel created by the museum's founder and proprietor Neil Thomas. This YouTube channel, now known as 'The Retro Collective' has nearly 200,000 subscribers and is watched the world over. Those who have viewed content from this channel will recognise The Cave as the backdrop to many of those videos.
The main areas of The Cave are filled with gaming systems both familiar and exotic, from popular British micros like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC to very rare Japanese machines like the Sharp X68000 and the SEGA TeraDrive.
The museum also has more specialised exhibits like our recreation of a popular high street software store, our table top gaming area with dozens of battery powered electronic and electro-mechanical games and our extensive library of video gaming magazines and books, all of which can be viewed and used by our visitors for their enjoyment and edification.
The Dev Den is a 'living exhibit' within The Cave celebrating games development and music technology, with a real 1980s games developer present and creating new games for vintage computers on original development kit.
The Cave has a well established reputation as a popular family destination for a fantastic day out. We are seeing more and more younger people embracing and enjoying retro gaming and it's history, as well as those of us who lived through those times and are keen to rekindle the wonderful memories of our own childhoods. We have a large and growing community of supporters and enthusiasts who love what we do here and keep coming back for more.
We also love to host some of the pioneers of the games industry for special events, talks and demonstrations. You can find these listed in our bookings page.
Everybody is welcome, so come and join the fun!
Visit The Cave - Computer and Console Gaming Museum
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Special Offers
These discounts will be applied to your basket automatically:
10% off a day out
Book a morning and afternoon session, on the same day, at any of our venues and receive a 10% discount.
