The museum’s collection comprises artefacts relating to the Borough of Ashford and its people.
The collection is represented by a number of displays including:
- A pre-historic collection starting with a 200 million year old dinosaur leg bone found in 2001 at Washford farm.
- Artefacts from the Neolithic, Romano- Briton and Anglo-Saxon periods.
- The First World War having a central feature of ‘Life in the Trenches‘, and photos of some who never returned.
- World War Two including information on the Prisoner of War camps within the Borough.
- An excellent display on the lost businesses of Ashford showing items and photos of those firms.
- Our Ashford Litter – one of very few examples that exist in the UK.
- Medical instruments from the old Ashford and cottage hospitals.
- Railway memorabilia including artefacts from the railway and works, photographs and two model railways to recall the important role that railways played in the towns history.
- Ashford Market, one of the oldest in the country, started in the 13th century by Royal charter.
- The military history of the town.
Our touch screen media unit has information about our first floor exhibits, the stories behind some other exhibits and clips from the recordings of interviews taken during research for the “All Change for Ashford” performance.
Library
Our collection of books and papers is now available for research. An appointment must be made in advance. A catalogue of the items is available here.
Contributing to our collections
We welome donations of aretefacts that meet our collection development objectives.
The Museum has limited space for storage and display so needs to ensure that its collection meets its objectives. Our Collections Development Policy states:
Themes and priorities for future collecting
- Collecting will continue to add objects that enable it to “Tell Ashford’s Story” and will accept donations of objects and documents that have a proven connection to Ashford, its people, history and development.
- Other than in exceptional circumstances, the Museum will only accept artefacts that are donated to the Museum and not those offered on loan.
In practice this means that we will only accept objects for which there is evidence of a connection with Ashford. For example, we are unlikely to accept your granny’s tin bath just because she lived in Ashford, but we might accept it if the metal was stamped “J. U. Bugler Ltd.”
If you do donate an artefact we will ask whether you would like it returned if we decide not to add it to our collection. If you do not, we will dispose of it in the most appropriate manner.