Hastings Museum and Art Gallery

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery stands in a red-brick house with sandstone trim on the edge of Hastings Country Park. Built in 1923 as a private home, the building has a crenellated roofline, columned loggia and studded oak doors. In 1932 an Indian palace hall, the Durbar Hall from the 1886 Colonial & Indian Exhibition, was added as an extension. A 1988 store and a 2006–07 refurbishment enlarged the space by 40% and improved access. The Durbar Hall was designed by Caspar Purdon Clarke and carved by woodworkers from the Punjab. The museum holds about 97,000 objects tracing local history, natural sciences and world cultures. Early galleries cover prehistory to the Saxons, local wildlife in dioramas, and a dinosaur gallery. A Native North American collection includes items linked to Hastings-born conservationist Grey Owl. Archives preserve papers on John Logie Baird, Robert Tressell and local industries such as gunpowder making. The fine art collection features topographical paintings of the south coast. Visitors find the Durbar Hall on the lower floor used for talks, theatre and weddings. The upper hall displays world cultures, including Pacific artefacts collected by Lady Brassey on her world travels. Local history cases show fishing tools, smuggling relics and Bonfire Society memorabilia. Dinosaur footprints from Fairlight sit beside Iguanodon fossils in the geology gallery. The wildlife dioramas recreate habitats from Hastings Country Park.