Sturminster Newton Museum

Sturminster's small museum is housed in an historic, thatched 16th C building in a conservation area in the centre of town. The Museum is managed by the Sturminsteer Newton Museum & Mill Society, which, as the name implys, also managed the town`s historic 17th C Mill which, regularly, still grinds corn.

The collection mainly contains objects , photographs and printed ephemera relating to Sturminster Newton and outlying villages. The photographic archive is extensive and forms the most valuable part of the collection. Many 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 includes examples of cottage industries that existed in Sturminster in the 18th and 19th centuries such as gloving and button making.

The Museum is 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.

The Museum contains a large working model of the, now defunct, railway station and cattle market, providing a nostalgic reminder of the town before 1966 for adults and a great source of entertainment for children.

Apart from items on permanent display, the museum has changing exhibitions each year which reflects a particular aspect of Sturminster's past or is of general interest. Until the end of 2010 there is an exhibition on the life and work of Robert Young, a Dorset dialect poet born and living in Sturminster, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth. The exhibition coincides with a new book on Robert Young published by the Museum Society.