Bexhill Museum

Bexhill Museum stands in Egerton Park, a quiet green space in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex. The building began life in 1903 as a small entertainments pavilion designed by George Ball. In 1914 it became an independent museum founded by local people led by the Reverend J.C. Thompson and Kate Marsden. Marsden had travelled thousands of miles across Russia to Siberia in 1891 and later organised meetings to gather artefacts for the new museum. She donated her own shell collection and encouraged Walter Amsden to give Egyptian items. The museum was run by volunteers from the start, with only two employees and a curator added later.

The museum is worth visiting for its four permanent collections and the stories behind them. The Sargent Collection fills an Edwardian gallery with shells, dinosaurs, birds, mammals, insects, Egyptian and Peruvian artefacts, stone tools and local archaeology. The Costume Collection shows garments and accessories from the 17th century to today. The Technology Collection displays vehicles from different eras. The Bexhill in WWII Gallery explains how bombs fell on the town and includes original wartime items and a 1940 Winter Wartime Model Railway.

Visitors find a single-storey pavilion with large windows and simple rooms. The Edwardian gallery holds glass cases of shells and fossils under controlled lighting. Costume displays line the walls with dresses, hats and shoes arranged by date. Vehicles from early bicycles to classic cars fill the technology room. The wartime gallery has photographs, uniforms and the model railway running through a miniature town. Outside, Egerton Park offers benches and a path around the pond, a peaceful place to end the visit.