Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: Cambridge Travel Guide

A totem pole in a stairwell

You climb a staircase and a carved Haida pole climbs beside you. It is one of the tallest objects in any British museum, and its painted cedar faces go up through several floors of a Victorian-era university building on the Downing Site. You come level with a new set of figures at every landing.

That pole sums up the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which everyone in Cambridge calls MAA. The collection is serious university material, built from more than a century of fieldwork. The museum’s own summary of it, “from totem poles to teapots”, is accurate.

Why it gets overlooked

Most visitors to Cambridge head for King’s College Chapel and the Backs. The rest go to the Fitzwilliam Museum on Trumpington Street. MAA is tucked behind an archway on Downing Street, inside a block of science departments, so it’s easy to walk past.

That works in your favour. The galleries tend to be calmer than the town’s headline sights. You can stand at a case of Pacific barkcloth or Stone Age hand axes without anyone leaning over your shoulder. Visitors rate it highly, but far fewer people review it than the colleges a few streets away.

How the floors are laid out

The building is arranged in layers, and the layout follows the collection:

• Archaeology: finds from Cambridgeshire and the wider British Isles, plus material from excavations around the world, from flint tools to Roman and Anglo-Saxon objects.
• Anthropology: objects collected from communities across the Pacific, Africa, the Americas and Asia, including carvings, textiles, masks and everyday tools.
• Temporary exhibitions: changing displays, usually built around a theme or a single collection. Check the museum’s website to see what’s on.

The cases are dense in the old university way. Labels are detailed and tend to explain where an object came from and how it reached Cambridge. More and more of them also cover the questions that history now raises.

Walking the Downing Site gate

The entrance is easy to miss, so here’s how it works:

• Find the archway: go in through the gateway on Downing Street into the Downing Site courtyard, then follow the MAA signs. The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences shares the same site, so you can see both on one trip.
• Plan around Mondays: MAA is closed every Monday. On Sundays it opens at 12pm instead of 10am, so a Sunday morning plan won’t work.
• Admission: entry has long been free. Donation points sit near the entrance, and the official website has current details for special exhibitions.
• Start high, finish low: go up first so you see the totem pole from the top landing, then work down through the galleries.
• Photography: rules can vary by gallery and exhibition, so read the signs before you raise a camera.

Arriving at 10am on a weekday usually puts you ahead of any school groups, which tend to come mid-morning in term time. University term also changes the feel of the street outside. Lecture changeovers fill Downing Street with students on bikes, so look both ways at the archway.

Getting there on foot

Central Cambridge is walkable, and MAA is right in the middle of it. Walking from Cambridge railway station takes about 20 to 25 minutes up Hills Road and Regent Street. Buses from the station and the Park and Ride sites stop around Drummer Street and St Andrew’s Street, both a few minutes away.

Don’t drive into the centre. The streets around the Downing Site are narrow and controlled. The Park and Ride sites on the edge of the city are the practical choice if you come by car. Cycling is normal here, and there are bike racks along the nearby streets.

Building an afternoon around it

Plan to spend 60 to 90 minutes inside, longer if a temporary exhibition grabs you. After that, plenty of other places are within a short walk:

• Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences: on the same site, full of fossils, minerals and dinosaur skeletons.
• Whipple Museum of the History of Science: on Free School Lane, a few minutes north, with globes, telescopes and scientific instruments.
• Fitzwilliam Museum: on Trumpington Street, about ten minutes’ walk, for paintings, antiquities and decorative arts.
• Pembroke and Downing colleges: both close by. Downing’s wide lawns are a contrast to the crowded cases you’ve just left.
• Grand Arcade and Lion Yard: just around the corner, for coffee and food when the galleries close at 5pm.

If you only have one museum slot in Cambridge, MAA makes a good alternative to the obvious choice. You’ll get a towering carved pole, cases of objects from almost every continent, and room to look at all of it.