Sturminster Newton Museum

Sturminster's small museum is housed in a converted Victorian Chapel which was formerly the place of worship for the staff and inmates of the Union Workhouse on Bath Road and was erected in 1891 under the patronage of Mr Montague Williams of Woolland House.

The collection mainly contains objects , photographs and printed ephemera relating to Sturminster Newton and outlying villages. Many of the donated items are of a domestic or personal nature and include; costumes and tools from the farming community; items relative to past services such as shopkeepring, small businesses, banking and tailoring. The collection also displays examples of cottage industries that existed in Sturminster in the 18th and 19th centuries such as gloving and button making.

The Museum is also engaged in building up a comprehensive local family history database to satisfy the growing interest in the subject and to provide information to a wider field of persons tracing their roots back to Sturminster.

A working model of the, now defunct, railway station and cattle market is based in the museum providing a nostalgic reminder of the town before 1960.

Apart from the static display of items of local interest, the museum also introduces a theme exhibition each year which reflects a particular aspect of Sturminster's past and includes items imported on loan for the occasion from other museums and societies. The featured display for 2007 is Victorian Sturminster, its railway and Workhouse.

See how the poor and destitute lived, fed, worked and slept whilst in care of the Union Workhouse. How they were stripped of their individuality and personality, by being clothed in standard attire, sleeping in single sex dormitories and eating in common dining rooms.

There is a special display of Victorian children's toys which the children can play with and a nostalgic photograph collection of old Sturminster faces and places to look at.