Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery stands in the centre of Worthing beside the grade II* listed St Paul’s. The building opened in 1908 to house both the town library and the museum, the library funded by Andrew Carnegie. It remains the largest museum in West Sussex and recently marked its centenary. The structure itself is a local landmark, its stone façade facing the town’s main streets. Inside, high ceilings and large windows allow natural light to fill the galleries. The museum occupies a single storey, arranged around a central corridor that leads visitors through each display area. The museum holds one of the largest costume and textile collections in the country. Its 19th-century gallery traces how women’s shapes changed through the century, while the 20th-century gallery shows fashions worn by local residents. A small menswear section complements these displays. Archaeology from the Adur–Arun valley is also kept here, including Neolithic flint mines featured on Time Team and the Patching hoard of gold coins. The Highdown Goblet, an Egyptian glass vase with Greek writing, came from an Anglo-Saxon burial site. Dolls, toys, and childhood objects fill another room, alongside social history and numismatics. The art collection began with works by artists with Sussex ties, such as Bianca by William Holman Hunt. Later acquisitions broadened to include British painting movements and sculptors like John Skelton and Dora Gordine. The museum owns Skelton’s walnut carving The Diver, bought in 2008 with help from the V&A Purchase Fund. Visiting exhibitions have featured Jon Edgar and Dora Gordine, organised with Kingston University’s Dorich House Museum. The building’s calm spaces and careful lighting let each object stand out clearly.