About
Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery is one of the finest and most richly varied regional museums in the South East of England. Housed in Chillington Manor — an Elizabethan building dating from approximately 1561, enlarged and extended over the following centuries — the museum opened to the public in 1858, making it one of the oldest museums in Kent and a venerable institution by any measure.
The collections are genuinely encyclopaedic in scope and ambition. Visitors encounter ancient Egypt through a remarkable collection of mummies and their associated funerary equipment — canopic jars, shabti figures, and amulets — assembled during the great age of Victorian Egyptology. In sharp contrast, the Japanese galleries display an outstanding collection of Samurai armour, swords, woodblock prints, lacquerware, ceramics, and decorative arts, representing one of the strongest Japanese collections in any regional museum in England.
The fine art collection spans several centuries and includes works by Dutch and Flemish Old Masters as well as British painters of the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. Decorative arts, glass, ceramics, furniture, and jewellery complement the paintings to create a survey of European artistic production of considerable depth. An extensive collection of historic costume and textiles traces changing fashions from the Tudor period to the twentieth century.
Natural history galleries house significant collections of zoological specimens, geology, and entomology, while local history and archaeology displays illuminate the long human story of Maidstone and the wider county of Kent — from prehistoric flint tools and Roman finds to medieval Maidstone and the town's more recent industrial and social history. An ethnographic collection drawn from cultures around the world reflects the global reach of Victorian collecting.
Also located within the museum is the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment Museum, commemorating one of Kent's most celebrated regiments.
Admission to Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery is free of charge, making it an outstanding destination for families, students, and all those with an interest in art, history, and the natural world. The Tudor manor building itself is a heritage attraction, providing a handsome and atmospheric setting for these remarkable collections.
Categories:
Highlights
Egyptian Mummies and Antiquities
Maidstone Museum holds a significant collection of ancient Egyptian objects assembled during the Victorian era, when Egyptian antiquities were avidly collected by British institutions and private individuals following the decipherment of hieroglyphics and the great archaeological explorations of the Nile Valley.
The collection includes mummified human remains, wrapped in their ancient linen bandages, as well as their associated funerary equipment: canopic jars, painted coffin fragments, shabti figurines, scarab amulets, and other ritual objects. Together these items give visitors a vivid and tangible connection to the beliefs, rituals, and material culture of ancient Egypt.
Japanese Art and Samurai Armour
The Japanese collection at Maidstone Museum is one of its greatest glories and one of the strongest Japanese collections in any regional English museum. The centrepiece is a magnificent display of Samurai armour — intricate, lacquered, and fearsome in equal measure — accompanied by swords, armour fittings, and weapons that illuminate the martial culture of feudal Japan.
The collection extends far beyond warfare: Japanese woodblock prints, lacquerware, ceramics, metalwork, inrō (decorative containers), netsuke, and silk textiles represent the extraordinary aesthetic refinement of Japanese decorative and applied arts across the Edo and Meiji periods.
Dutch and Flemish Old Masters
The fine art collection at Maidstone Museum includes a selection of paintings by Dutch and Flemish Old Masters of the seventeenth century — a period of extraordinary artistic production in the Low Countries. Works representing the characteristically Dutch genres of landscape, portraiture, genre painting, and still life are displayed alongside British paintings spanning several centuries.
The presence of such works in a regional English museum reflects the collecting ambitions and connections of the Victorian and Edwardian benefactors who built the collection.
For students and lovers of European painting, the fine art galleries offer an absorbing survey.
Historic Costume and Textiles
The costume and textiles collection at Maidstone Museum spans several centuries of clothing and fashion history, from Tudor-period garments to twentieth-century dress. The collection encompasses women's and men's clothing, undergarments, accessories, and textiles from both elite and everyday contexts, tracing the evolution of fashion and the role of clothing in social identity and self-expression.
Kent had strong connections to the textile trade, and the collection reflects both broad national and European trends and specifically regional aspects of the production and consumption of clothing.
The collection is rotated and displayed thematically and chronologically.
Collections
Ancient Egypt
Permanent display of Egyptian mummies, funerary equipment, canopic jars, shabti figures, and other ancient objects assembled during the Victorian era.
Japan: Art and Armour
Comprehensive permanent display of Samurai armour, swords, Japanese woodblock prints, lacquerware, ceramics, and decorative arts.
Fine Art Galleries
Permanent galleries of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, British paintings, watercolours, and prints from the museum's extensive art collection.
Natural History
Permanent natural history displays covering zoology, geology, and entomology, with particular strength in Kent's fossil record.
Maidstone and Kent: Local History
Permanent local history galleries tracing the story of Maidstone and Kent from prehistory to the twentieth century.
Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment Museum
Permanent regimental museum within Maidstone Museum commemorating the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment.
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.