Matlock Bath Aquarium

Offering a weird and exciting mix of public aquarium plus thermal carp pool, creepy petrifying well, shiny gemstone and fossil display, vintage chinaware collection, regional history exhibition and one of the largest public displays of Holograms in Europe!

The Thermal Pool is fed by a warm spring and illuminated at night, containing plentiful common carp, mirror carp and koi.

Kids are more than welcome to feed the fish but naturally only with the approved food available on site.

Rather unexpectedly but terrific for the kids, it's also home to one of the largest public displays of Holograms in Europe, and they've recently kindly repositioned the entire lot to make them more easily visible to children. Thanks guys, holograms are cool!

School Trips

The Aquarium is always a favourite place for all children to explore. Once the Victorian consulting rooms for Matlock Bath Hydro, it is now the home to our wide range of fish. We have had school art trips visit to do paintings and drawings of the fish. The fish fact sheets throughout the Aquarium give many important biology facts about the various species, like biggest, fastest, food requirements, what the various fins are called etc. Outside is the Thermal Pool, still with it's old iron roof girders spanning above.

The Holograms are an endless source of fascination and a great opportunity to see laser technology and science come together to produce some amazing images move and objects appear and disappear before your very eyes. A very comprehensive set of information sheets are also on display that explain the theory and science behind the making of different type of Holograms.

The Thermal spring is a chemistry haven for facts and figures. Just what dissolved minerals are in the water that turns items to stone in the Petrifying Well and why is the water at a constant 68 degrees?

In addition to these is our 'Past Times in Matlock Bath' Exhibition, which is a wonderful collection of old photographs & information dating back as early as 1786 that tell a story of life gone by. 

A host of information for any school history project.