Gold Hill Museum

About

*LATEST UPDATE*  We re-opened on Monday 31 May, and plan to be open every day until Sunday 31 October 2021, subject to government regulations and availability of volunteer stewards. Please check our website for precise details of opening hours

Gold Hill Museum and Garden can be found at the top of picturesque Gold Hill, with its steeply inclined cottages and cobbled surface. The hill has featured in countless calendars and in the perennially popular Hovis “Boy on a Bike” advert filmed by Ridley Scott in 1973.

Gold Hill Museum is set in two historic buildings. One was once a priest’s house and still has a ‘squint’ through the wall to neighbouring St Peter’s Church; the other provided basic lodgings for traders at the market on Gold Hill. The secluded, award-winning garden offers a magnificent view over Thomas Hardy’s Blackmore Vale and seats for quiet contemplation in sun and shade.

Six light and airy galleries on two floors tell the story of Shaftesbury and District from the days before the foundation of town and Abbey by Alfred the Great. Among the artefacts on display are the unique Byzant, carried during annual celebrations of the securing of the water supply, so vital to a hilltop town; Dorset’s oldest fire engine, dating from 1744; fine lacework and costumes; handmade Dorset buttons; and a mummified Dorset cat.

Entry to Gold Hill Museum is free, though donations are welcome. All our rooms, including a further two used for temporary exhibitions and our Education Room, are accessible to wheelchair and buggy users.

An Explorer’s Quiz and baskets of activities in Rooms 2 and 4 are available for younger visitors. Six Dorset Button Mice hide in display cases, waiting to be discovered by visitors of all ages. Locally sourced gifts and books are on sale in the Museum Shop, while visitors may browse in our second-hand book corner. The nearest café is within twenty yards of the Museum gate, and other cafes, coffee shops and pubs are less than two minutes’ walk away in the High Street.

Gold Hill Museum is owned and managed by volunteers of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society, registered charity no. 1156273. Further details on our website www.goldhillmuseum