THOUSANDS of fascinating finds from the Science Museum's archives are being moved into a massive new £40m storage facility near Wroughton.

Remember the warehouse packed with treasured artifacts shown at the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark? Imagine that, but sat on Swindon's outskirts.

Construction of the collection centre began in 2019 and now that it's complete, a careful and complicated effort has begun to move scientific marvels of all shapes and sizes from London's Blythe House to their new home.

The museum's team has spent months cataloguing, photographing and safety-checking the boxed-up bits and bobs and are now excited about finally being able to put them on display along 30,000 metres of shelving for visitors to enjoy.

Storage manager Alex Fullerlove said: "They have been in storage for so long so it's great to see them all in one place. This has been a big logistical challenge."

Once the centre opens to the public in 2024, people will be able to book guided tours, schools can arrange class trips, and anyone interested in peeking at exhibits that are not currently on show can ask for research visits.

Curator Laura Humphreys added: "We're looking after it but it belongs to you. This centre makes everything the museum has accessible to everyone, bringing all the big and small stuff together so it's easier for us to explain how it all works.

"I'm looking forward to sharing my enthusiasm for this collection with other people. We want this to be the most visited store in Europe."

So far, around 20,000 objects have been moved over and and 120,000 are available to view online. The first items on show include a model of a massively-magnified influenza virus particle, a toy duck used by scientists to identify landing sites on a comet for a space mission, and a Thomas the Tank Engine toy made in Swindon.

The 90m wide and 300m long building is kept at a stable humidity to ensure the exhibits do not deteriorate, and rooftop solar panels outside along with eco-friendly smart lighting inside ensure that its carbon footprint is kept as low as possible.

The largest items - including an inert Polaris missile, a Leyland Titan double-decker bus and a record-breaking balloon gondola sent into the stratosphere - will be the last to be moved in. Some of them come from the collection centre's old home next door.

They will be displayed in an enormous hangar with a colourful grid of 3.6sq metre boxes on the floor to help organise what goes where.

Alex added: "It's like a giant Battleship grid and it will be a dynamic space where different things are being moved around and included."

Acting director and chief executive of the Science Museum Group Jonathan Newby said: "This new facility will revolutionise public access to one of the most significant scientific collections in the world.

"It will enable us to continue our mission to inspire futures while providing an environmentally friendly, purpose-built home for the Science Museum Group Collection for the first time.

"I am delighted the first objects have already arrived in their new home and cannot wait for 2024 when Wiltshire residents and people across the UK can explore this incredible collection in person."

Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage said: "‘Our £150 million Blythe House project will provide new, cutting edge storage facilities for the national collections and the Science Museum Group's new collections centre will help to ensure these important objects are preserved for future generations to learn from and enjoy.

"This is an important step in making our collections future-proof and I am delighted that the first objects are now being transferred to their new home."

An earlier version of this article mentioned that the centre cost £150 million. This figure is actually the funding shared by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sportbetween the Science Museum Group, the British Museum and the V&A to move out of the Blythe House store.

The new collection centre itself cost £40 million.