Shackleton's Legacy

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This immersive experience is the starting point of your journey into the past with us at the Shipwreck Treasure Museum.

Descending into the network of tunnels below our harbourside museum which has been transformed into an atmospheric world of ice, you will be immersed into what life was like for those early polar explorers such as Shackleton and his crew.

Learn about their perilous journeys into unchartered, and unforgiving polar realms with the aim of achieving what was thought to be impossible.

Marvel at striking images of Shackleton's ill-fated Endurance expedition that brought Antarctica to life in this exhibition in association with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) at the Shipwreck Treasure Museum.

The striking images chart the trials and tribulations of the Endurance mission in the harshest climate and their daring escapade to survive what seemed certain death.

In contrast to the historic, early imagery from Shackleton’s famous Endurance adventure, the new image-led exhibition, Frozen in Time, explores exciting archaeological shipwreck discoveries beneath the Arctic and Antarctic seas that have employed the latest, cutting-edge technology.

The four shipwrecks featured are Franklin’s HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, Benjamin Leigh-Smith’s Eira, the infamous RMS Titanic and Shackleton’s Endurance.

Modern colour photographs, including those taken this year by the Endurance22 expedition having discovered the wreck of Endurance, and archaeological scans alongside images of underwater archaeology in action. They showcase how shipwrecks are discovered, explored, and documented today in these remote, inhospitable parts of the world.