East Sussex Museums

Bentley Wildfowl & Motor Museum

A fascinating collection of over 1000 swans, geese and ducks from all over the world, along with a superb collection of gleaming Veteran, Edwardian and Vintage Cars and Motorcycles. You can observe art at work with our resident glass sculptress, woodcarvers, jewellery maker and others. If you love architecture or interior design, or just like to browse, then visit Bentley House, a Palladian-style mansion restored by Raymond Erith, with the Philip Rickman Gallery, containing a collection of over 150 watercolours by the celebrated Sussex artist. Its formal gardens are to be marvelled at, with yew hedges dividing a series of ’rooms’ in a reflection of the house. But to get right away from it all, take a relaxing walk around Glyndebourne wood, a mixture of conifers and broad-leaved trees interspersed with sunny glades which are carpeted with bluebells in May. A new trail with interactive boards makes learning about wildlife and woodland management fun! Plus with a childrens’ adventure playground, gift shop, and café, with tempting home-made fayre, Bentley is a complete family day out

Halland, Lewes  BN8 5AF  Tel: 01825 840573 Email

Bexhill Museum

Bexhill Museum is housed in an Edwardian park pavilion.  Its collections reflect the fascinating history of Bexhill as well as an important geological collection including local dinosaur remains.  We have the original architect’s model of the De La Warr Pavilion, L S Lowry’s painting of the Down Mill, ethnography featuring the Lady Brassey Collection, extensive natural history collections, and local and international archaeology including Egyptology.

Egerton Road, Bexhill, TN39 3HL  Tel: 01424 787950   Email

Booth Museum of Natural History

Over half a million specimens, natural history literature and data extending back over three centuries are housed in this fascinating museum, including hundreds of British birds displayed in recreated natural settings. Plus butterflies, skeletons, a whale and dinosaur bones.

194, Dyke Rd, Brighton BN1 5AA  Tel: 01273 292777

Brighton Fishing Museum

Museum of Brighton fishing industry and seafront; guided walks of Brighton’s seafront and fishing quarter.

201 Kings Road Arches, Brighton  BN1 1NB  Tel: 01273 723064

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

4 May 2002 saw the reopening of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, transformed by a £10 million redevelopment, with a complete redisplay of its rich and diverse collections. This project is part of a larger regeneration scheme creating a vibrant cultural centre in and around the Royal Pavilion estate in the heart of the new city of Brighton & Hove.

Dynamic and innovative new galleries provide greatly improved access to the Museum’s nationally and locally important collections. Objects are displayed in stimulating contexts with a wide range of interpretative techniques, including the latest interactive information technology

Church St, Brighton BN1 1UE   Tel: 01273 290900

Buckley’s Yesterday World

Step back in time at this museum of Victorian life.

89-90 High Street  Battle,  TN33 0AQ  Tel: 01424 774269   Email

Hastings Fishermen’s Museum

The museum is housed in a former church, built on the beach in 1854, to minister to the local fishing community. Opened as a museum in 1956 by the Old Hastings Preservation Society, the centrepiece is the Enterprise, one of the last Hastings sailing luggers.

Adjacent to the museum is the Edward and Mary, the first locally built fishing boat to be constructed with an engine installed in 1919. Exhibits also include model ships and boats, fishing gear, historic paintings and photographs illustrating the Hastings fishing industry

Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings TN34 3DW  Tel: 01424 461446

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery contains fine paintings and china, the cultures of other lands and a contrasting view of local wildlife today and as it would have been 150 million years ago. There are plenty of special features for children with fossils, local animals and a display on the Hastings born conservationist, Grey Owl. The most spectacular part of the museum is the magnificent Durbar Hall constructed for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886

Cambridge Road, Hastings TN34 1ET Tel: 01424 7811551424 781155

‘How We Lived Then’ Museum of Shops

This famous Museum of Shops is in the centre of Eastbourne, just off the seafront between the War Memorial roundabout and the main theatres. Visitors say this is one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind.
There are over 100,000 exhibits on 4 floors of old shops, room-settings and displays depicting 100 years of Shopping & Social History. Certainly, it’s one of the oldest, having been amassed during the past 40 years by Jan & Graham Upton.

20 Cornfield Terrace, Eastbourne,  BN21 4NS  Tel: 01323 737143  Email

Marlipins Museum

The Marlipins Museum is a 14th century (or earlier) building in the High Street, Shoreham-by-Sea, on the north side of the road. The facade on the front of  the building is a chequer-work of knapped Caen stone. Early roof timbers are visible on the top floor.
In 1346 the deeds described the building as a stone corner tenement called ’Malduppine’ situated in the Otmarcat .....  The building was certainly older than this, although it is thought that its present form dated from 1330

High Street, Shoreham by Sea, BN43 5DA Tel: 01273 462994 or 01323 441279 Email

Mechanical Memories Amusement Museum

A local branch of a volunteer-run national museum which displays coin operated amusement machines from c1900 to c1960, together with other related artefacts and ephemera including old adverts and posters.  The collections also include a fairground organ plus working pre-decimal arcade slot machines, for which visitors can buy old pennies.

Address: 50, St. Lukes Rd, Brighton BN2 2ZD   Tel: 01273 608620

Preston Manor Museum

A delightful old Manor House evokes the atmosphere of an Edwardian gentry house both 'upstairs' and 'downstairs'. Dating from c.1600, rebuilt in 1738 and substantially added to in 1905, the house and its contents give a rare insight into life during the early years of the 20th century. Archives, Costume and Textiles, Decorative and Applied Art, Fine Art, Personalities, Social History

Preston Drove, Brighton BN1 6SD  Tel: 01273 292770

Rye Castle Museum

A local history museum for Rye.  Housed in two buildings, a medieval tower with views over Romney Marsh, contains collections of smuggling items and medieval pottery.  The East Street site has displays of uniform, pottery, toys, Rye’s fire engine, and changing displays on aspects of Rye’s history.

3 East Street, Rye TN31 7JY Tel: 01797 226728  TN31 7JY

Sussex Toy & Model Museum

With a collection of teddy bears, dolls, planes, forts and trains, the museum is located in one of the arches under Brighton Railway Station

52-55, Trafalgar St, Brighton BN1 4EB   Tel: 01273 749494

Towner Art Gallery

A fine collection of 19th and 20th century British art featuring works by celebrated war artist, Eric Ravilious.

High Srteet, Old Town, Eastbourne  BN20 8BB  Tel: 01323 411688   Email

Winchelsea Court Hall Museum

Inside the Court Hall museum, displays illustrate the history of the Antient Town, since it was built by Edward I as a medieval "New Town" over 700 years ago, and about Winchelsea’s position as Head Port of the Confederation of Cinque Ports.

High Street, Winchelsea, TN36 4EU  Tel: 01797 226382