About
Bexhill Museum is an independent community museum that has served the seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea since 1914, making it one of the oldest established museums in East Sussex. Housed in a purpose-built premises on Egerton Road close to the seafront, it preserves and presents the rich and surprising history of a town that transformed itself from a sleepy fishing village into a fashionable Edwardian resort in the space of a single generation.
The museum's natural history collections are a particular strength, with fossils, minerals, and geological specimens illustrating the deep time story of this stretch of the East Sussex coast. Prehistoric finds from the local area — stone tools, flint implements, and bone fragments — speak to human activity in the region stretching back tens of thousands of years. Roman-period objects found locally chart the presence of this influential culture in what is now the eastern Sussex coastline, complementing the better-known Roman sites of the wider region.
Bexhill's social and local history is explored through photographs, documents, personal memorabilia, and reconstructed interiors. The story of the town's dramatic Edwardian transformation — engineered largely by the Earl De La Warr who developed the resort in the 1880s and 1890s — is told with period photographs, maps, and artefacts. The famous De La Warr Pavilion, the Modernist masterpiece designed by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff and opened in 1935, features prominently in the museum's 20th-century displays as the town's most celebrated building.
The costume collections present fashionable dress and everyday clothing from the Victorian and Edwardian periods through to the 20th century, reflecting Bexhill's status as a resort for the respectable middle and upper-middle classes. Temporary exhibitions regularly draw on the collections to highlight particular themes in local history, natural history, or the decorative arts.
Bexhill Museum is run by the not-for-profit Bexhill Museum Association and charges a modest admission fee, with concessions for seniors, children, and local residents.
Categories:
Annual Visitors (2019)
15,000
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Busiest: Saturday, Sunday
💡 Weekday mornings in spring or autumn for unhurried visits
💡 Visitor Tips
- Combine your museum visit with a walk to the De La Warr Pavilion just 5 minutes away — one of the finest Modernist buildings in England and well worth exploring in its own right.
- The museum is housed in a compact building; allow 90 minutes for a thorough visit and more if you want to spend time in the archive or gift shop.
- Bexhill has excellent train connections from Hastings and Eastbourne — the station is about 10 minutes' walk from the museum and makes the town easy to reach without a car.
- Parking in Bexhill town centre can be busy on summer weekends; consider arriving by train if you're visiting in peak season.
- The fossil collections are particularly popular with children and young people interested in dinosaurs and prehistoric life — check with staff about any handling sessions or special events.
- Temporary exhibitions change regularly throughout the year, so even if you've visited before there is likely to be something new to see in the exhibition galleries.
- The museum shop stocks a good selection of local history titles about Bexhill and East Sussex that are difficult to find in general bookshops.
- If visiting in summer, the Bexhill seafront is excellent for a post-museum stroll or picnic — the shingle beach stretches for miles in both directions.
Highlights
Prehistoric and Palaeolithic Finds
The museum holds a significant collection of prehistoric material from the Bexhill area, including Palaeolithic and Mesolithic flint tools, axes, scrapers, and worked bone fragments that testify to human presence on this stretch of the East Sussex coast stretching back hundreds of thousands of years.
These objects, many recovered from local beaches and gravel deposits, provide a fascinating deep-time prologue to the town's better-documented historical period and connect Bexhill to the remarkable prehistoric landscape of the Sussex coast.
Fossil and Geological Collections
The East Sussex coast is celebrated among fossil hunters, and Bexhill Museum's geological and palaeontological collections reflect the area's rich natural history. Ammonites, belemnites, marine reptile bones, and plant fossils from the Cretaceous and older formations of the local cliffs and foreshore are displayed alongside geological specimens and explanatory maps.
The displays help visitors understand the dramatic changes in landscape and climate that have shaped this corner of England over millions of years.
Roman-Period Objects
Roman material found in and around Bexhill provides evidence for activity in this coastal area during the Roman period, though the town itself is not a major Roman site. The collection includes pottery sherds, coins, personal ornaments, and structural material recovered from local finds spots, complemented by interpretive displays explaining the Roman presence in the broader East Sussex region and Bexhill's position in the landscape of Roman Britain.
These finds contextualise the area within the wider story of Roman colonisation of southern England.
Edwardian Resort History
Bexhill's transformation from obscure farming village to fashionable seaside resort is one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the East Sussex coast. This gallery charts that transformation through the agency of the Earls De La Warr, who developed the town from the 1880s with hotels, roads, and the distinctive brick villas that still define the townscape.
Period photographs, maps, postcards, and personal memorabilia bring the Edwardian resort to life in all its social complexity — from the genteel promenaders on the seafront to the working families who served them.
Collections
Bexhill Museum's collections span natural history, geology, prehistoric archaeology, Roman finds, local history, costume, and 20th-century social history. The fossil and geological material from the East Sussex coast is scientifically significant, while the prehistoric collections document human activity in the area across an extraordinary timescale.
Social history collections focus on Bexhill's transformation from village to resort, the Edwardian period, and the 20th century, with an important archive relating to the De La Warr Pavilion.
The costume collection is a notable holding for a museum of this size.
Bexhill Through the Ages
Prehistoric to present local history of the town and its people
📍 Main galleries
Natural History of the East Sussex Coast
Fossils, geology, and wildlife of the local coastline
📍 Natural history gallery
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.