Glocken-StadtMuseum (Apolda, Germany)

A classical villa in Apolda’s Bahnhofstraße houses both the bell museum and the town museum. Built in 1854 for publisher Wilhelm Junge, the building later passed to Franz Kreiter, whose family lived there until the city bought it in 1924. Over the years it served as a library, police station and even a wartime office for Russian orders. Sixteen flats filled the upper floors when the address book of 1949 listed its tenants. The bell museum opened in 1952, tracing the craft from archaeology to modern foundries. Its displays include fifty bells from Europe and beyond, plus tools, clappers and decorative rubbings. Visitors may touch and strike most pieces, guided by a soundtrack of bell music. The town museum, founded in 1951, focuses on Apolda’s knitwear industry through clothing, patterns and machines. A single company’s story illustrates the rise and fall of textile production that shaped the city. The building is currently closed for renovation, but an interim museum operates in the Eiermannbau on Auenstraße. When the villa reopens, the permanent exhibitions will show European tower bells, non-European forms, and the town’s industrial past. Machines, garments and factory records will remain the core of the displays. The two collections together tell how bells and textiles defined Apolda’s identity across centuries.