The Crafts gallery features both an ever changing series of temporary displays along with permanent  exhibits, including a number of long case clocks made locally, a model church and house made for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and a series of paintings and drawings by acclaimed artist Raoul Millais.  Please check the exhibition programme to find out what the next exhibition in this room will be.

The Curator’s Library of over 2,000 volumes features books collected for the light they shine on different areas of the Museum’s collections and can be consulted upon request. The library also features some small displays, including Edward Bainbridge Copnall’s early painting ‘Wither.’

Works from the Museum’s art collection are displayed in the stairwell and landing, featuring a collection of drawings by Dr. Geoffrey Sparrow, a local G.P. and huntsman, and a Muzzell clock.

Horsham can trace its origins to a land charter of AD 947 and has seen a number of developments in the thousand years since. The displays trace how Horsham came by its name in Saxon times to the town centre redevelopments of the 1980s and 1990s. The medieval display case is dominated by the collection of medieval pots known as the ‘Horsham Hoard,’ found in the 1860s by Thomas Honywood and brought together here for the first time since their discovery. In the twentieth century case there are the collecting tins used for fund raising for the town’s War Memorial and the cottage hospital, as well as shell fragments from WWII bombs that fell on the town.

Cabinets of Curiosity were the forerunners of museums. They were the personal collections of wealthy owners and were assembled to evoke a sense of curiosity and wonder. In their own way they offered means to categorise and understand the world. They eventually developed into museums as we know them today.

There are three themes to this gallery, all interlinked. Horsham was at the cutting edge of Victorian science as two local men, George Bax Holmes and Thomas Honywood transformed the idea of the past. Bax Holmes discovered and collected dinosaur fossils, including the remains of the Great Horsham Iguanodon at St. Mark’s, and Honywood discovered of the material remains of Mesolithic man (from the period after the last ice age, some 8 to 10,000 years ago). The story of Horsham is brought up to date with the model of the proposed town centre redevelopment of the 1980 and 1990s. 

This gallery displays a number of kitchen items and features the remains of a medieval fireplace discovered during the renovation of the area. The gardening element of the gallery is portrayed in a small display of a gardener’s potting shed, with objects ranging from a seventeenth century watering can to 1950s seed packets. The gallery also displays pottery and porcelain spanning the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and features Capability Brown’s design for Horsham’s lost stately home, Hills Place.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet and well known political radical, was born at Field Place, Warnham, in 1792. During his life he wrote some of the most powerful poetry in the English language and promoted radical causes, such as political and religious reform, equality between the sexes, and vegetarianism. Today he is admired throughout the world for his works. He drowned in 1822 off the Italian coast in his own sailing boat, the ‘Don Juan,’ while returning from a sailing trip during a violent summer storm, a month short of his 30th birthday. There are very few surviving Shelley relics and what there is has been donated to major national collections. Horsham Museum has built up a collection of first and early editions that tell his life through books.

This bright, lively gallery focuses on childhood and the toys that filled it, ranging from a medieval toy pot to modern day favourites such as the Telly Tubbies. On display there is a complete Edwardian dolls’ house, a moving model railway engine and a revolving display showing toys and objects from several generations of children from the early 1900s to the 1970s. There is also a bookcase with examples of children’s literature spanning 200 years and a giant ‘A-Z of Childhood’ containing a wealth of interesting facts.

The Costume Accessories gallery is more of a store than a gallery. Using original 1950s Swedish shop fittings, the small drawers from ladies’ outfitters have been turned into display drawers containing some of the Museum’s rich collection of costume accessories, including shoes from 1670 to 2000, hats, hat pins, costume jewellery, ethnographic jewellery, chatelaines, purses and handbags. A small cabinet displays a selection of buttons whilst a large graphic panel explains how to look after your prized possessions.

Horsham Museum holds over 2,500 items of clothing, mostly dating from 1850 to 1950. The collection contains many everyday items though there are some notable exceptions such as Queen Victoria's monogrammed chemise from 1880, an embroidered Tudor cap and a Gallenga shawl by Italian designer, Maria Monaci, that is the envy of many a textile collection. There are even examples of far eastern clothing such as a spectacular suit of Samurai armour. Due to the delicate nature of textiles they cannot be on permanent display for conservation reasons, but the Museum stages a costume exhibition once a year.