About
Hillingdon Museum tells the story of London's second-largest borough, a stretch of west London running from Harefield in the north to Heathrow in the south, and it does so from a suite of rooms in the former Middlesex Suite at Uxbridge Civic Centre, alongside Uxbridge Library. It is a free, walk-in museum operated by the London Borough of Hillingdon, and it shares its accommodation with the borough's local studies and archives service, so visitors can move directly from a display case to the documentary sources behind it.
The territory it covers is more varied than most London boroughs. Hillingdon includes market towns and canal wharves, the Colne valley gravel pits and their waterways, ancient parishes such as Harmondsworth with its outstanding medieval great barn, the suburban expansion that followed the Metropolitan Railway's arrival, the RAF's Battle of Britain command bunker at Uxbridge, and Heathrow — an airport built over farmland and an entire village within living memory. The displays draw these threads together rather than treating the borough as a single undifferentiated suburb.
Rotating exhibitions carry titles such as Hillingdon's Treasures and Shopping in Hillingdon, and there is a reconstructed Victorian domestic interior with objects children are encouraged to handle rather than look at through glass. Because the museum is small and its programme changes, the specific displays on any given visit vary, and returning after a year or so is genuinely worthwhile rather than a repeat.
What stays constant is the walk-in search room next door. There, staff help visitors with family history, house history and local research using the borough's archives — parish registers, rate books, deeds, electoral registers, maps, local newspapers and a very large photographic collection covering every one of the old Middlesex parishes now inside the borough boundary. No appointment is needed within opening hours, which is increasingly unusual for a local authority archive service, and for most serious visitors this is the substance of the trip while the museum displays serve as an introduction to the sources behind them. For anyone interested in west London beyond the tourist centre, or researching ancestors in Uxbridge, Hayes, Ruislip, Harefield or the vanished parishes under Heathrow, it is a genuinely useful and entirely free resource.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The museum shares the Civic Centre with Uxbridge Library, whose hours are longer — the building being open does not mean the museum rooms are staffed.
- Sunday opening is only 10:00am to 1:00pm, half the length of the weekday and Saturday day.
- The archives search room next door is the real draw for family and house historians, and no appointment is needed within opening hours.
- Bring specific names, addresses or dates if you are researching; staff can point you at the right registers and rate books far faster with a starting point.
- Uxbridge station is a three-minute walk and is the terminus of both the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines, so the museum is genuinely easy to reach without a car.
- The Civic Centre closes on bank holidays, unlike many London museums, so avoid those dates.
- Combine the visit with the Battle of Britain Bunker, twenty minutes' walk away, which covers the RAF side of the borough's history in depth.
- If you have a car, drive out to Harmondsworth Great Barn — free, extraordinary, and almost unknown outside the borough.
Highlights
Hillingdon's Treasures
A rotating selection of the most significant items from the borough's collections, drawn from archaeology, decorative art, documents and objects with strong local associations. Because Hillingdon covers ground occupied continuously since prehistory — the Colne valley gravels have produced Palaeolithic and Neolithic material — the range on show can be unusually wide for a borough museum, running from worked flint to twentieth-century industrial and domestic pieces.
The display changes periodically, which rewards return visits, and the accompanying labels are written to explain why each object matters locally rather than simply what it is.
Shopping in Hillingdon
This recurring display traces the retail life of the borough from village shops and market stalls through the department stores and high streets of the twentieth century to the arrival of the covered shopping centre. Shop fittings, packaging, advertising material, tills, scales and photographs of vanished frontages document a form of daily life that changed almost beyond recognition within two or three generations.
It is the sort of subject that produces immediate recognition among older local visitors, and the museum actively collects the recollections and further donations that the display prompts.
The interactive Victorian home
A reconstructed Victorian domestic interior forms the museum's principal hands-on display, furnished with everyday objects that visitors, and particularly children, are encouraged to pick up and use. Range, mangle, flat irons, chamber pot and kitchen implements make the physical labour of an ordinary nineteenth-century household immediately obvious in a way that a glass case cannot.
It is the element of the museum most used by visiting school groups, and it works equally well for family visitors with young children who would otherwise find a local history display heavy going.
The local studies and archives search room
Directly alongside the display rooms is a walk-in search room holding the borough's archives: parish registers, rate books, census material, electoral registers, deeds, maps, local newspapers and an extensive photographic collection covering all of Hillingdon's constituent parishes. Staff assist visitors with family history, house history and local research, and no appointment is needed during opening hours.
For most serious visitors this is the real reason to come, and the museum displays function as an introduction to the sources next door rather than as the main event.
Collections
Hillingdon Museum holds and interprets the London Borough of Hillingdon's local collections, covering an area that includes Uxbridge, Hayes, Ruislip, Northwood, Harefield, West Drayton, Harmondsworth and the land now occupied by Heathrow Airport. Material ranges from Colne valley archaeology through medieval and early modern documentary sources to objects of nineteenth and twentieth-century domestic, retail, industrial and military life.
The museum's displays rotate and are supported by the borough's local studies and archives collection held in the adjoining search room, which comprises parish and civil registers, rate books, deeds, maps, electoral registers, local newspapers and a very substantial photographic archive covering all of the borough's constituent parishes and settlements.
Rotating borough displays
Changing selections including Hillingdon's Treasures and Shopping in Hillingdon, drawn from the borough's collections.
The Victorian home
A reconstructed nineteenth-century domestic interior with handling objects, used heavily by school and family visitors.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.