About
The Faith Museum opened in October 2023 in a purpose-built wing attached to Auckland Palace at Bishop Auckland, and it is the first museum in Britain devoted entirely to the story of faith across these islands. Rather than presenting the history of a single religion, it sets out to trace roughly six thousand years of belief in Britain — from the ritual landscapes of the Neolithic, through the arrival and spread of Christianity, the upheavals of the Reformation, the growth of dissenting congregations, and the arrival of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and other communities whose faiths are now woven into British life. The result is a museum about people rather than doctrine, and about what belief has looked like in ordinary hands rather than only in cathedrals.
The building itself is part of the argument. Designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects and clad in local stone, it sits alongside the medieval and Georgian fabric of Auckland Palace, the residence of the Prince Bishops of Durham for eight centuries, so that a new structure about faith stands directly beside a building that embodied ecclesiastical power. Inside, four gallery spaces spread over two floors carry more than two hundred and fifty objects borrowed from some fifty lenders across England, Scotland and Wales, alongside pieces from the collections of The Auckland Project itself.
What gives the displays their force is the range of scale. A Bronze Age gold artefact sits within sight of a handwritten Methodist class ticket; a fragment of an early Christian ring found at nearby Binchester sits near objects made and used within living memory. The upper gallery turns to the contemporary, with commissioned works by living artists responding to belief, doubt and ritual. The Faith Museum is one of several separately ticketed attractions run by The Auckland Project in Bishop Auckland, and admission also covers Auckland Palace and its walled gardens.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays outside Bank Holidays, which catches out visitors who assume a major new museum opens daily.
- Last entry is 3:30pm and the galleries close at 4:00pm — arriving after about 2:30pm makes it hard to do justice to the museum and Auckland Palace on the same ticket.
- Buy a combined Bishop's Key pass if you intend to see the Spanish Gallery or Mining Art Gallery as well; individual tickets add up quickly.
- Auckland Palace and the walled garden are included with Faith Museum admission, so allow half a day rather than an hour if the weather is reasonable.
- Mat Collishaw's Eidolon installation runs on a cycle in a darkened room; wait for the beginning rather than walking into the middle of it.
- There is no on-site parking — use the North Bondgate car park at DL14 7PG and walk up into the Market Place.
- Bishop Auckland station is on the Bishop Line from Darlington and is a nine-minute walk from the site, making a car-free visit straightforward.
- Christmas and New Year opening is reduced; check the operator's website before travelling between late December and early January.
Highlights
The Binchester Ring
Found during excavations at the Roman fort of Vinovia at Binchester, a little over three kilometres north of Bishop Auckland, this small intaglio ring carries an image usually read as an anchor flanked by two fish — symbols used by early Christians when open declaration of the faith was still hazardous.
It is among the earliest surviving pieces of evidence for Christianity in Roman Britain, and its discovery so close to Auckland Palace gives the Faith Museum an unusually direct local claim on the story it tells. Displayed at eye level and lit to show the carving clearly, it repays taking the time to look properly at an object smaller than a thumbnail.
The Bodley and Bowes Bible collection
The museum's displays of scripture bring together printed and manuscript Bibles that trace the contested history of the text in English.
Early printed editions sit alongside pocket volumes carried by ordinary readers, some annotated in the margins by their owners, and each is presented less as a bibliographic rarity than as an object that somebody used. The sequence makes visible the argument that runs through the whole museum: that the Reformation was not only a matter of monarchs and statutes but of who was permitted to read, in what language, and at what personal risk.
Wall text keeps the political stakes clear without overwhelming the objects.
Eidolon by Mat Collishaw
Commissioned specially for the opening of the museum, Mat Collishaw's Eidolon is a sound and video installation occupying a darkened space of its own within the galleries. It draws on the visual language of religious apparition and the burning bush, using projection and layered audio to produce an effect that visitors frequently describe as unsettling rather than comforting.
Its presence signals something important about the museum's approach: contemporary art is not decoration here but part of the argument, offering a way to address awe, doubt and the difficulty of representing the divine that historical objects alone cannot easily carry.
Allow several minutes for the full cycle.
The building by Niall McLaughlin Architects
The museum occupies a new stone-clad structure designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects and completed in 2023, attached to the medieval and Georgian fabric of Auckland Palace.
Its pitched roofline and deliberately restrained detailing were conceived to sit in conversation with the older buildings rather than compete with them, and the local stone weathers into the surrounding walls. Inside, controlled daylight from high-level openings falls across the galleries and changes markedly through the day and the seasons.
The building has been widely praised in the architectural press, and visitors interested in contemporary church-adjacent architecture will find it worth a slow circuit outside as well as in.
Collections
The Faith Museum's displays combine long-term loans from some fifty institutional and private lenders across England, Scotland and Wales with material owned by The Auckland Project. The chronological spine runs from prehistoric ritual objects through Roman-period Christian evidence, medieval devotional art, Reformation and post-Reformation printed scripture, nonconformist and revivalist material of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and on to the objects of Britain's present-day multi-faith communities.
Alongside these sit commissioned works of contemporary art.
The collecting emphasis falls consistently on objects that were made, handled or kept by individuals rather than on institutional treasures, so that liturgical silver and illuminated manuscripts appear beside class tickets, samplers and family Bibles.
Ground floor chronological galleries
A sequence tracing belief in Britain from prehistory through the Roman period, the medieval church, the Reformation and the rise of dissent, built around loaned objects and local archaeology.
Upper gallery: faith now
Displays and recorded testimony addressing religious practice in contemporary Britain across a range of traditions, shown alongside commissioned works of contemporary art.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.
Nearby Museums (5 within 6 miles)
Locomotion: The National Railway Museum at Shildon
science-technology
Shildon — ~45 min walk (2.3 mi)