Museums

Arundel Museum

The Museum is in a purpose built home next to Mill Road Car Park, opposite the gates to Arundel Castle.

Arundel Museum is entirely run by volunteers from the Arundel Museum Society, whose members organise a number of interesting events, such as themed talks and walks around the lovely and town of Arundel - a place dripping with history at every turn.

Arundel Museum website

Blatchington Windmill

A restored windmill containing various milling related exhibits including Exhibits include two scale models of Shipley smock mill and Nutley post mill, a Thresher and a Wire Dressing Machine.

Blatchington Windmill website

Booth Museum, Brighton

Museum of Natural History

The Booth Museum of Natural History contains over half a million creatures, as well as a wide range of natural history and other records.

If stuffed birds and pinned butterflies are your thing, then this is the place for you.

Booth Museum, Brighton website

Brighton Museum

Recently boosted by a £10 million redevelopment, Brighton Museum has galleries devoted to 20th Century Art & Design, Pottery, Images of Brighton, Fine Art, Fashion & Style and World Art.

Brighton Museum website

Brighton Toy & Model Museum

The museum has the mother of all train sets, meccano, puppets, one of the largest Triang collections in the world, toy cars, a mutoscope (what's that? - why an early motion picture device, patented by Herman Casler on November 21, 1894 of course) and thousands of other toys from days gone by.

Located underneath the arches of Brighton Railway Station.

Brighton Toy & Model Museum website

British Engineerium

A restored working Victorian pumping station and museum of mechanical antiquities.

British Engineerium website

Burgess Hill Museum

Heritage Centre which is only open during the summer at highly restricted times. Check before you set out.

Burgess Hill Museum website

Cuckfield Museum

Attractive town museum with a frequently rotating range of special exhibitions. and family history resources such as census records and other old papers.

The Museum also tells the story of Gideon Mantell (who ought to be as famous as Charles Darwin, but isn't) and the Cuckfield Dinosaurs.

There is also a section of the Museum devoted to local artist Robert Bevan.

Cuckfield Museum website

Ditchling Museum

Ditchling occupies an important place in 20th century British Arts and Crafts and much of the focus of this vibrant museum is on this. The museum has a very good collection of work from the 1920s by artists, sculptors, weavers, silversmiths , engravers, printers and more.

There are also strong displays of more general local history and the major exhibition for 2008 is titled Art, Craft and the Village Life of Ditchling: A Collection Considered.

The website contains some interesting information relating to exhibitions which have finished. This is a great idea and in our opinion all museums should follow this lead or, preferably, extend it to include all the exhibits.

Ditchling Museum website

East Grinstead Museum

Refreshed displays, events for kids, and a local history research room.

Free admission.

The museum is run by volunteers and would be glad of your help.

East Grinstead Museum website

Foredown Tower

Foredown Tower is a converted water tower dating from 1909. As you might expect, the top of the tower is a good vantage point to look out over the Downs, Portslade, Brighton and the English Channel.

A science and nature museum has been housed in the Tower and it is targeted firmly at children.

Interestingly, the Museum contains one of only two camera obscuras in the region - the other being at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich . The camera obscura was originally built for the Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990 and was subsequently bought by Hove Borough Council specifically for Foredown Tower.

Foredown Tower website

Haslemere Museum

Haslemere Museum occupies a grand Georgian Building on the High Street and houses geology, natural history and human history collections.

The Museum also plays its part in organising and hosting local events of a highly varied nature. For example the Guess the Invention evening was preceded in the calendar by a Dinner Dance.

Haslemere Museum website

Henfield Museum

Varied local museum offering free admission covering a balanced range of eras in Henfield's history.

Horsham Museum

Impressive Museum housed in an attractive building in central Horsham.

In addition to the sorts of exhibits that you normally expect to find in a local museum, Horsham Museum's 26 themed galleries contain displays devoted to such unusual exhibitions as Blazing Saddles, Cabinet of Curiosity, Crime & Punishment, Ethnography, Flints and Fossils, Georgian Room, Saddlery, Shopping Gallery and Wealden Farmer.

The Museum's website is excellent too and gives plenty of information about the collection and current exhibitions.

Horsham Museum website

Hove Museum

The Hove Museum and Art Gallery is located in New Church Road and has a Toy Gallery, Film Gallery, Contemporary Craft Galleries, Local History Gallery and a Paintings Gallery.

The Fine Art Gallery contains important "Dutch 17th century paintings, 19th century British landscapes, a representative collection of works by painters associated with the Camden Town School and material relating to the Royal Pavilion and George IV."

There is a useful facility on the Brighton Museums website which allows you to search part of the museum's collection.

Hove Museum website

Littlehampton Museum

Based in Church Street and offering free admission.

Littlehampton Museum website

Marlipins Museum

Marlipins Museum in Shoreham is interesting for two main reasons.

First, like many of the museums on this page, it's a good musuem. Open in the summer months, Marlipins has exhibits about the history of Shoreham-by-Sea, local geology and maritime life.

Secondly, the building itself is a bit special.

It's partly because of the age of the building, with parts of it dating from the 12th century. Yes, we have lots of Saxon and Norman churches in Sussex which are older - but Marlipins is probably the oldest non-church building still standing in West Sussex. It's practically impossible to judge this claim of course because, like most of our really old buildings, Marlipins has been rebuilt, repaired and altered so often over the centuries.

It is thought that the building was some sort of store or custom house. Marlipins has an unusual and rather beautiful appearance, being decorated with a checkerboard pattern of knapped stone.

Sussex Past | Marlipins Museum website

Petworth Cottage Museum

The museum is run by the Petworth Cottage Trust ie volunteers and it is a recreation of the cottage of the seamstress Mary Cummings, who worked for Lord Leconfield at Petworth House at the tern of the 20th century.

The cottage contains a parlour, scullery, bedroom, cellar, attic and sewing room which have all been furnished 1910 style.

The Museum is open in the summer, but check opening times before heading out.

Petworth Cottage Museum website

Preston Manor

Preston Manor is a stately home with more than 20 rooms on show to the public. Although the Manor dates initially from the early 17th century, the Museum is presented in the style of an Edwardian Manor house.

Recently the Manor has become known as something of a ghost hunters' dream with a White Lady and various other things going bump in the night recorded by paranormal investigators.

Preston Manor is also an important venue in the annual Artists' Open House programme.

Preston Manor website

Royal Pavilion Museum

Lavish is the word for the Brighton's iconic building.

Wisely bough by the city (then town) fathers following the Brighton Improvement (Purchase of the Royal Pavilion and Grounds) Act 1850, the Pavilion houses ostentatious and spectacular furniture, but it is the building itself and its interior detailing which is the main attraction.

The major exhibition for 2008 is titled Chinese Whispers: Chinoiserie in Britain 1650 -1930 and is firmly focused on the flamboyant.

Royal Pavilion Museum website

Steyning Museum

Another excellent Sussex museum run by volunteers.

The permanent collection is augmented by special exhibitions and group visits are encouraged, although book in advance for these.

The map suggesting how Stenyning lay in the 11th century, with the Adur much more navigable than it is now, is particularly interesting. You can see the map on the website.

Steyning Museum website

Storrington and District Museum

Very good website with a lot of the exhibits viewable online. The Museum also arranges events such as themed walks.

Storrington Museum is housed in the Old School building and aims to record and present the history of Storrington plus the surrounding villages of Amberley, Ashington, Bury, Cootham, Parham, Sullington, Thakeham, Washington, West Chiltington and Wiggonholt.

Storrington and District Museum website

Sussex Museums

The Sussex Museums website provides a good overview of nearly all the Museums in Sussex and is a useful resource if you are planning a museum visit.

Sussex Museums website

Tangmere Military Aviation Museum

For more details see our flying in Sussex page

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

Fine municipal museum with large costume and toy collections.

The Fine and Decorative Arts collections contain a mixture of pieces by local artists and others by non-local artists. The Museum draws on its extensive local archive and geology and archaeology are well represented.

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery website

You might also find our pages on the brilliant Weald and Downland Museum, Singelton useful.