Horsham Museum is a museum at Horsham, West Sussex, in South East England. It was founded in August 1893 by volunteers of the Free Christian Church and became part of Horsham District Council in 1974. It is a fully accredited museum and serves both Horsham and its district with the support of the Friends of Horsham Museum and an active volunteer base.
Horsham Museum has been situated in Causeway House since 1941, but prior to that the collections found a home in the basement of Park House, North Street in 1921 and before that anywhere the artefacts could be stored. The Museum occupies the entirety of Causeway House as well as a purpose built archive, a separate display and education building, and a reconstructed barn holding agriculture-related items. It also uses the nearby White Lion Barn for off-site storage.
ArchiveThe archive building at Horsham Museum was built after the arrival of the current curator, Jeremy Knight. He persuaded Horsham District Council to construct the store to properly hold the Albery collection. He discovered that the documents were considered to belong to the Horsham Museum Society by right but in the course of research, and the discovery of the will of William Albery, it became apparent that the documents belonged to the town, not the Museum Society. This meant that they could no longer be kept locked away, as they had been, in a sixteenth-century chest. In return for the archive store, a ground floor office was given over to the Horsham Council that become the Tourist Information Centre (previously destined to be a fine and applied art gallery). This gave the council an effective Tourist Information Centre.
GardenThe museum garden was, until 1981, a derelict area after many years of neglect. A project run by the Horsham Museum Society (now Friends of Horsham Museum) led by Sylvia Standing was developed to restore the garden to a fit state. For 23 years, Sylvia led the team to restore the garden before retiring in 2004, allowing a team of volunteers to continue the project. A plaque was placed on a wall in the garden commemorating Sylvia's success. In 2007 the team won the Community Services Gold Award in the Horsham in Bloom Floral Display competition, recognition of the hard work put in to the garden throughout the year.
The Museum has a large and varied collection arranged in 26 galleries. It has a significant collection of books and memorabilia relating to the Warnham-born poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), including many early editions of his works and that of his second wife Mary Shelley (1797–1851). It also possesses original letters and books relating to the wider Shelley circle.
The Horsham Museum owns a number of prints by local artist John Guille Millais (1865 - 1931). They also have a significant sculpture by Millais of fighting game birds that is now on permanent display
Other collections include ceramics, ethnography, local Sussex trades and industries, working life, geology, archaeology, bicycles, and horses. A particular feature of the Museum's collections is the Archive of documents relating to Horsham and its history, including the collection of William Albery.
There are 26 galleries at Horsham Museum, most of which are given over to permanent displays. There is currently a 3-year programme of display and interpretation updating. The permanent displays are:
The temporary exhibitions spaces are: