About
Havant Museum occupies the Old Town Hall of Havant, a handsome building at the centre of this historic market town between Portsmouth and Chichester. Founded in 1977 and managed by Hampshire Cultural Trust, the museum serves as the principal repository for the history of Havant and the surrounding coastal plain — a landscape of chalk downland, tidal harbours, and ancient settlements that has been inhabited continuously since prehistoric times and that carries a complex layering of natural and human history.
The museum's collections reveal Havant as a place of more industrial significance than its quiet market-town character might suggest. For centuries, Havant was a centre of the glove-making trade — one of the specialist leatherworking industries that flourished in Hampshire and Wiltshire using the skins of the livestock raised on the chalk downlands. The glove-makers of Havant supplied a national market, and the craft sustained local employment through complex networks of outwork that spread beyond the town itself. Alongside the glove trade, Havant was also notable for parchment making — the production of writing material from prepared animal skin — an industry with roots in the medieval period that continued in the area into the modern era. These two industries, now entirely gone, are documented in the museum's collections with tools, products, photographs, and documentary records.
The archaeology collections are a significant asset, reflecting the richness of the archaeological landscape around Havant. Roman remains are particularly well represented: the coastal plain between Chichester and Portsmouth was intensively settled in the Roman period, and excavations in and around Havant have produced pottery, coins, metalwork, and structural evidence of Roman occupation. The collections also cover prehistoric material from the downland and the harbour margins, and medieval artefacts from the town's long history as a market centre.
Langstone Harbour — the great tidal inlet that lies immediately south of Havant — is represented in the natural history and environmental history displays: an internationally important wildlife site supporting huge populations of wading birds and wildfowl, the harbour has also been the site of significant archaeological discoveries including submerged prehistoric landscapes visible at low tide. Together, the human and natural history of Havant and its hinterland make this a museum of genuine depth and local significance, serving a community whose identity is shaped by both the chalk downlands to the north and the tidal coast to the south.
Categories:
Highlights
The Havant Glove-Making Industry
For centuries, Havant was a significant centre of the glove-making trade — one of the specialist leatherworking industries of the Hampshire and Wiltshire chalk country, sustained by the livestock raised on the downlands and worked into fine gloves for a national market. The museum's displays document this vanished industry with tools, lasts, finished gloves, machinery, and archival material that captures the trade from the individual craftworker to the commercial networks that distributed Havant gloves across England.
It is a story of skilled handwork, family enterprise, and economic adaptation that is rarely told with this degree of detail.
Parchment Making Collections
Alongside the glove trade, Havant was notable for parchment production — the preparation of animal skin as a writing surface, a craft with roots in the medieval period that continued in the area into living memory. The museum documents this specialist industry with objects and records that explain the complex process of preparing, stretching, and drying skins to produce parchment of a quality suitable for legal and ecclesiastical documents.
The collections include examples of parchment at various stages of production and finished documents — a tangible connection to a world before paper dominated written communication.
Roman Archaeology of the Coastal Plain
The coastal plain between Chichester and Portsmouth was intensively settled in the Roman period — a productive agricultural landscape crossed by roads and dotted with villas, farmsteads, and small settlements. The museum's Roman collections, drawn from excavations in and around Havant over several decades, include pottery, coins, metalwork, and structural material that document this occupation in detail.
The Roman presence in the area is contextualised alongside the great Roman site of Fishbourne Palace (ten miles east), giving visitors a sense of the scale of Roman ambition in this corner of southern Britain.
Langstone Harbour Natural History
Langstone Harbour — the great tidal inlet immediately south of Havant — is one of the most important wildlife sites in southern England, designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Ramsar wetland of international significance. The museum's natural history displays explore the ecology of the harbour and its surroundings, with particular attention to the extraordinary birdlife: huge flocks of Brent geese, dunlin, grey plover, and other wading birds winter on the mudflats, and breeding terns and little egrets add to a remarkable avifauna.
The displays connect the cultural history of Havant to the wider environmental context of the coastal plain.
Collections
Havant: A Town and its Trades
The story of Havant's distinctive industrial heritage — glove making, parchment production, and related leatherworking trades — documented with tools, products, and archival material from a craft economy that has entirely disappeared from the modern town.
From Downland to Harbour: The Natural and Human History of Havant
A survey of the archaeology, natural history, and community history of Havant and the coastal plain, from prehistoric submerged landscapes in Langstone Harbour to Roman occupation, medieval market town, and Victorian industrial expansion.
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.