UCL Art Museum

CL Art Museum is situated in a traditional Print Room at the heart of UCL, its collections publicly accessible through temporary exhibitions and displays across the university campus. Under UCL’s dome in the library is The Flaxman Gallery, the pinnacle of a vast collection of art works by John Flaxman (1755-1826), showcasing the artist’s plaster models in a unique architectural setting.

UCL Art Museum’s collections contain over 10,000 objects including paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture dating from 1490 to the present day. Works on paper are housed in a traditional Print Room setting in the museum, and paintings and sculpture are displayed in public rooms around college. The collection was founded in 1847 with a gift of the sculpture models and drawings of the Neo-classical artist John Flaxman.

Extensive gifts of prints and drawings were also presented to UCL, including the Grote bequest of 1872. This included an important group of 16th-century German works and a selection of Renaissance and Baroque prints and drawings mainly from Northern Europe. The Vaughan Bequest of 1900 included drawings by Turner and De Wint, Rembrandt etchings, and early proofs and states of Turner’sLiber Studiorum and Constable’s English Landscape Scenery. The Sherborn Bequest of 1937 added many rare and important prints to the collection including an early edition of Dürer’s Apocalypse woodcuts and early states and proofs from Van Dyck’s Iconographia.

Spelthorne Museum

Spelthorne Museum is divided into two rooms. The Elmsleigh Room is opened by Staines Library staff and has the history of Spelthorne from the Ice Age to Modern Times. To provide visitors with something different there are two display areas which are changed frequently.

The second of Spelthorne Museum’s two rooms is the Thames Room. This is opened when volunteers are on duty and as well as further displays and the Museum Shop it has the Temporary Exhibition area. The Museum aims to have two temporary exhibitions a year.

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

The Petrie Museum houses an estimated 80,000 objects, making it one of the greatest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in the world. It illustrates life in the Nile Valley from prehistory through the time of the pharaohs, the Ptolemaic, Roman and Coptic periods to the Islamic period.

The Petrie Museum is a university museum. It was set up as a teaching resource for the Department of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London (UCL). Both the department and the museum were created in 1892 through the bequest of the writer Amelia Edwards (1831-1892).

Military Intelligence Museum (Intelligence Corps Museum)

The Military Intelligence Museum displays key elements of the history of British Military Intelligence from the Boer War onwards.

The central focus of the museum is the Intelligence Corps, our collection includes a great many objects and special exhibits about the history of the Corps. We have two new interactive, permanent displays, one focusing on the Honours and Awards received by members of the Corps, and the other paying tribute to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their Sovereign and their country, in the ‘Name of the Rose’ interactive.

Another key collection is the Medmenham Collection devoted to aerial photography and image analysis. This highlights the use of 3D imagery, initially in the first World War and then again with huge success in later years, during World War II and the Cold War. 

Complementing these displays are two smaller displays. These cover the ‘BRIXMIS’ intelligence-gathering mission, based in East Germany during the Cold War, and the American radio operations that took place in Chicksands, from 1950 until 1996.

A further highlight is the SOE display housing a comprehensive collection of artifacts brought over from post-war France and displayed in an innovative diorama with touch-screen displays bringing it to life. This display also commemorates over 600 members of the Intelligence Corps who served in SOE. 

Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, UCL

Robert Edmond Grant was the first Chair of Zoology in England, the founder of the Grant Museum collection and its first curator. He set the precedent that the Chair of Zoology at UCL (then the University of London) was also the curator of the comparative zoology collection. On his death Grant left his own collection to the museum, and was briefly succeeded by William Henry Allchin before care of the collection passed to invertebrate zoologist Edwin Ray Lankester in 1875. Lankester was curator until 1891 and added significantly to the museum collection. Later lecturer curators included evolutionary biologist W. F. R. Weldon Edward Alfred Minchin^[9], embryologist J. P. Hill and palaeontologist D. M. S. Watson. After 1948 the curatorship of the museum was no longer the responsibility of the Chair of Zoology and the museum was under the care of professional curators.

William Morris Gallery and Brangwyn Gift

The William Morris Gallery and its collections are owned and managed by Waltham Forest Council.  The Gallery is run by the Museum, Gallery and Archives Service of the Cultural and Community Services section in the Residents First directorate.  The Museum, Gallery and Archives team also runs Vestry House Museum of local history, and the borough archives, a 10 minute walk away in Walthamstow Village.

Frank Brangwyn RA and Walthamstow Borough Council signed a trust deed in 1935 to set up the Gallery and ‘The William Morris Gallery and Brangwyn Gift’ opened to the public in October 1950.  The trust deed created a board of trustees, the Trustees of the Brangwyn Gift, whose role would be to advise on the collections at the Gallery.

Worthing Museum & Art Gallery

Worthing Museum & Art Gallery holds one of the most significant costume collections in the UK, as well as notable collections in fine and decorative arts, social history, toys and dolls and archaeology. There are around 30,000 items within the costume collection alone.

WMA will be exhibiting work outside of the Museum walls across the borough of Worthing with a costume trail launched summer 2016 and a series of sculpture plinths across the town planned for 2017.

Valence House Museum

The only surviving manor house in Dagenham, Valence House dates back to Medieval times and is still partially surrounded by a moat.

Following extensive refurbishment in 2010, exciting galleries tell the story of Barking and Dagenham and its people throughout the ages.

Discover the tranquil herb garden and Dig for Victory plot.

You can also research local and family history in our Archives and Local Studies Centre.

Round off your visit by enjoying light refreshments in the Oasis Café and browsing the gift shop.

Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre

Dedicated to the industrial heritage of the South East, charting the history of local industry and crafts in this part of Sussex. We have a diverse collection of exhibits, to include a narrow-gauge railway and bus service (both provide free nostalgic travel around the site), Connected Earth Telecommunications Hall, Milne Electricity Hall, Printing Workshop and much more. The Museum is also home to traditional craftspeople, such as the blacksmith and potter.

Ashford Borough Museum

The building in which the Museum is housed was erected and endowed by Sir Norton Knatchbull of Mersham-le-Hatch in 1635 and continued as the Ashford Grammar School, apart for an interval of ten years, until a new school was opened in 1881. It has since been restored with many of the original features of a 17th Century schoolroom remaining, including the old master’s and usher’s seats, the niches in the Walls for books and the Wainscoting carved with graffiti of former pupils.

Ashford Museum is operated by the Ashford Borough Museum Society, a registered charity comprised entirely of volunteers. The Museum is managed by a Committee overseen by Trustees. The Committee and Trustees are elected by and report to members at an Annual General Meeting.

Go to the Support Us page for information on becoming a member of Ashford Borough Museum Society.