Behind the Scenes at the Museum: The Journey of an Artefact

Some visitors liken our museum to the Tardis – they’re amazed at how much is packed in.

For the National Heritage Weekends in September, we’re giving you the chance to see what’s packed in behind the scenes too.

Let our curatorial volunteers show you what happens when an item enters the museum – and its journey, until it either goes on exhibition or goes into storage for exhibition or research at a later date.

You’ll see how items are recorded, wrapped and stored – all according to best museum practice.  Our professional museum mentor has gone on record to the Collections Trust as saying: “In my ten years in museums, I’ve not come across a volunteer-run museum with such high standards of collections management.”  We have Accredited status to prove it – the same status as that held by the British Museum and the V & A.  And not only do we have high standards, our Visitors’ Book says we’re “kind”, “friendly”, “helpful”, “lovely” and “welcoming” too…

In any given month, 50 or 60 volunteers work in the museum, drawn from the town of Thornbury and the surrounding villages.  Come and say hello to some of them!

The museum will be open so that you can drop in any time you like from 10am to 4pm on either Saturday 8^th September or Saturday 15^th September.   It’s absolutely free. We look forward to welcoming you and showing you behind the scenes!