News

The exhibition of photographs we put on for Heritage Open Days showing the journey from

a house to a Museum in words and pictures is still on display.

If you didn't catch it during Heritage Open Days or the Totnes Heritage Day, there's still time.

We'll be open on Friday and Tuesdays throughout October from 10.30 until 4.00pm

It's Heritage Open Days from 12th to 21st September 2025

We're open on Tuesdays and Fridays 10.30 - 4.00 and Saturdays 13th and 20th September from 11-3.

There's a new longcase clock trail, and new displays in the Nursery. We've also had unsuitable plaster removed from the walls in the kitchen area and you can see the process unfolding.

National Heritage Open Days September 2025

This year the house is 450 years old and we're celebrating this all year with new displays and exhibitions.

We'll be open during the National Heritage Open Days fortnight in September on

Friday12th, Saturday 13th, Tuesday 16th, Friday 19th and Saturday 20th.

Come and see the new displays on the landing, in the Nursery and follow the longcase clock trail.

National Heritage Open Days 2024

Totnes Museum took part in National Heritage Open Days in September this year and showed a new display of photographs of some of the beautiful 16th and 17th century decorated plaster ceilings in Fore Street and High Street in Totnes.

The exhibition has been taken down, so the best opportunity of seeing one of these ceilings is to look up at windows above the shops as you walk along Fore Street and High Street.

If you're lucky enough to live in a house with one of these lovely ceilings, perhaps you could open the curtains and shine a light on the ceilings so people in the street below can see them.

Posterity Project

In early 2023, volunteers at Totnes Museum decided to mark the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla by creating a very special Time Capsule – a unique celebration of Totnes. The aim was to capture some of the energy, vibrancy, and individuality of the market town, in Devon, in the coronation year, for future generations.

It was named The Posterity Project.

The community were invited to contribute ideas and content either by visiting the exhibition in the museum, to write, draw, or voice record their thoughts, or by contacting the museum by mail or email.

The responses were collected and, behind the scenes, ideas were developed, photographs were organised, and additional material and images added, to document the town of Totnes in the year 2023

The album was on display in Totnes Museum throughout the summer season of 2024, and now it is to be carefully stored and will remain unopened for almost thirty years. In 2053, a new generation of Totnesians will be provided with this colourful window to the past.

Association of Independent Museums (AIM) Grant

Totnes Museum has been very lucky to be awarded an AIM Collection Care grant which is helping us to care for and manage our collection more effectively. We had overstuffed boxes in our storeroom spilling out into our workroom because we had items in inappropriate boxes and no archive quality boxes we could use and limited storage options. We even had a lesser horseshoe bat in the Nursery store cupboard for a while - though we were pleased to be able offer it a temporary residence. It's likely that the bat has moved to a winter hibernation roost.

Thanks to the grant we have been able to start a systematic audit of the collection in storage which enables us to know what we have and where it is. We have also been able to clean artefacts thanks to the collection specific vacuum cleaner, we have data loggers to make sure that our objects are cared for in the right conditions, we now have appropriate boxes and plenty of acid free tissue paper so we can repack objects and be sure they are safe. As a bonus we have rediscovered some really lovely items which have been in storage and also found some items we thought were missing and which have now been reunited with the rest of the group on display.