About
The Fusilier Museum in Bury tells the story of the Lancashire Fusiliers and their successor regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, across more than three centuries of British military history. The regiment was raised in 1688 as the 20th Regiment of Foot and became one of the most decorated infantry regiments in the British Army, a record the museum presents through original documents, uniforms, weapons, medals and the personal possessions of the men who served. Bury has been the regimental home town since the nineteenth century, and the museum sits at the centre of a community whose connection to the Fusiliers runs through generations of families.
The collection's most celebrated holding relates to the landing at W Beach, Cape Helles, on the morning of 25 April 1915, when the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers came ashore under withering fire at the opening of the Gallipoli campaign. Six Victoria Crosses were awarded for that single action, giving rise to the phrase "six VCs before breakfast" that has attached itself to the regiment ever since. The museum holds a significant group of Victoria Crosses alongside the campaign material that places them in context, and treats the Gallipoli story with the seriousness that its cost demands rather than as simple regimental glory.
Beyond Gallipoli the displays follow the regiment through Minden and the Seven Years War, the Napoleonic campaigns, the Crimea, both World Wars, and the postwar decades that ended with amalgamation into the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968. Regimental silver, colours, drums and a substantial uniform collection show the ceremonial and institutional side of army life, while letters, diaries and photographs carry the individual voices that make a regimental collection more than an inventory of equipment.
The museum occupies a handsome former Arts and Crafts building on Moss Street in Bury's Cultural Quarter, a short walk from the Metrolink interchange and immediately beside Bury Art Museum. Its archive and family history service draws researchers tracing Fusilier ancestors, and the admission ticket doubles as an annual pass, an unusually generous arrangement for a museum of this size.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Keep your ticket. Admission acts as an annual pass valid for twelve months, so a return visit costs nothing.
- Last admission is one hour before the museum stops admitting visitors, so arrive by mid afternoon on weekdays and by early afternoon on Saturdays.
- The museum does not open on Sundays or Bank Holidays, which catches out visitors combining it with a weekend trip on the East Lancashire Railway.
- Allow longer than the gallery footprint suggests. The Gallipoli material repays slow reading, and most visitors spend more time there than they expect.
- Combine the visit with Bury Art Museum next door, which is free and holds the Wrigley Collection of Victorian painting.
- If you are researching a Fusilier ancestor, contact the archive in advance rather than turning up. Records are not available on demand at the front desk.
- Bury Interchange is five minutes away on foot and puts the museum within easy reach of central Manchester by Metrolink, which is far simpler than driving and parking.
- Ask the volunteers on duty. Many have regimental or family connections and will add detail that the labels do not carry.
Highlights
The Gallipoli Gallery and W Beach
The centrepiece of the museum recounts the landing of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers at W Beach, Cape Helles, on the morning of 25 April 1915. The battalion rowed ashore into uncut wire and concentrated fire, suffering catastrophic casualties within minutes of touching the sand. The gallery uses maps, contemporary photographs, personal equipment and the written accounts of survivors to reconstruct the action hour by hour, and it does so without softening what the landing cost the regiment.
For many visitors, particularly those with Bury family connections, this is the reason they come, and the museum treats it accordingly.
Six VCs Before Breakfast
Six Victoria Crosses were awarded to the Lancashire Fusiliers for the W Beach landing, an almost unmatched concentration of the decoration for a single morning's fighting, and the phrase "six VCs before breakfast" has followed the regiment ever since. The museum displays Victoria Crosses from its collection alongside the citations, service records and photographs of the men who won them, so that the medals read as biography rather than as trophies.
Seeing the crosses grouped together makes the scale of the action immediate in a way that no casualty figure quite manages, and the accompanying material restores individual names to the statistics.
The Regimental Medal Collection
Beyond the Victoria Crosses the museum holds an extensive collection of campaign and gallantry medals covering three centuries of Fusilier service, from the eighteenth-century campaigns of the 20th Regiment of Foot through to the late twentieth century. Groups are displayed with the service papers, photographs and letters of their recipients wherever the archive allows, turning ribbon and metal into individual careers.
The collection is particularly strong on the two World Wars, and the arrangement rewards slow looking: the same battle honours recur across generations of the same Bury families, which is the point the display quietly makes.
Minden Day and the Regimental Rose
The regiment's oldest battle honour commemorates Minden, fought on 1 August 1759, when British infantry advanced against and broke French cavalry in an action long held up as a feat of discipline. Fusiliers traditionally wear roses in their headdress on Minden Day, a custom said to derive from flowers picked as the men advanced through German gardens towards the battlefield.
The museum's Minden material covers the engagement itself, the evolution of the commemoration, and the ceremonial life that grew around it, offering a useful counterweight to the twentieth-century campaigns that dominate the rest of the collection.
Collections
The collection covers the Lancashire Fusiliers from their raising as the 20th Regiment of Foot in 1688 to amalgamation into the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968, and the successor regiment thereafter. It comprises Victoria Crosses and campaign medals, uniforms and insignia spanning three centuries, regimental colours, drums and presentation silver, weapons and personal equipment, and a substantial documentary archive of service records, war diaries, letters and photographs.
Gallipoli and the two World Wars are the strongest areas, but the earlier campaigns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are well represented, and the archive underpins an active family history enquiry service used by researchers across the north west.
Gallipoli and the W Beach Landing
The 1st Battalion's landing at Cape Helles on 25 April 1915 and the six Victoria Crosses awarded for it, reconstructed from maps, photographs, equipment and survivors' accounts.
Three Centuries of Service
The regiment from its raising in 1688 through Minden, the Napoleonic Wars and the Crimea to the twentieth century, told through uniforms, medals and personal possessions.
Regimental Life
Colours, drums, silver and ceremonial objects illustrating the customs, traditions and institutional identity of the Fusiliers.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.