About
Ripley Museum occupies a small brick building beside the village hall in Ripley, a Surrey village on the old Portsmouth Road between Guildford and Cobham. It is run by the Send and Ripley History Society, staffed entirely by volunteers, free to enter, and open on Saturday mornings — which makes it easy to miss and worth catching.
The building has its own story. It was a branch of the National Westminster Bank until 1992, when the branch closed and the premises were donated to the history society, giving a village organisation the thing such groups almost never have: a permanent home on the main street. The society has run it as a museum since, mounting a new exhibition roughly every three months drawn from its own collections and research, so the displays change through the year rather than remaining static.
The subject matter is the two parishes of Send and Ripley and the life that went on in them: farming and brickmaking, the shops and trades of the village street, schools and chapels, the families who stayed for generations. Ripley's particular claim is the Portsmouth Road, which made it a coaching stop and then, in the late nineteenth century, the most famous cycling destination in England — the Ripley Road was the classic run out from London, and the Anchor Inn became the unofficial headquarters of Victorian cycling, its visitors' books signed by thousands of riders.
One feature is unexpectedly popular: the museum has an air raid shelter that visitors, adults included, can step down into and sit inside. Combined with the wartime displays it makes the Home Front tangible in a way a case of ration books does not, and Surrey's position beneath the London approach routes and later the V-1 flight paths means it is a response to a threat the village genuinely faced.
The society also helps with local and family history enquiries, holding parish records, census returns, directories, maps and its own indexes for Send, Ripley and the surrounding parishes, and the museum can be opened by arrangement outside its usual hours if you telephone the curator. It is a short visit — half an hour or so — but the village street outside is a conservation area of timber-framed and Georgian buildings that survived because the A3 was routed around it, so walking it afterwards with the photographs fresh in mind roughly doubles the value of the trip.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- ⚠ Saturday mornings only, 10:00am to 12:30pm — this is the single most important thing to know, and it catches out almost everyone.
- It also opens on Sundays when the Ripley antiques fair is on, which is worth checking if a Saturday does not suit.
- The curator will open the museum by arrangement at other times — telephone 01483 728546 rather than assuming you cannot get in.
- Sit in the bomb shelter. It is the thing visitors remember, and adults are as welcome to as children.
- The exhibition changes roughly quarterly, so a return visit some months later shows entirely different material.
- Come with names, addresses or dates if you are researching family history; the volunteers can search the society's indexes on the spot.
- There are no toilets in the museum, but the village pubs and cafés are a few steps away.
- Combine with RHS Garden Wisley two kilometres north, which turns a half-hour museum visit into a proper day out.
Highlights
The Ripley Road and Victorian cycling
In the late nineteenth century the stretch of the Portsmouth Road through Ripley became the most celebrated cycling run in England — the classic day out from London, ridden by tens of thousands on penny-farthings and then safety bicycles. The Anchor Inn in the village served as the unofficial headquarters of the movement, and its visitors' books were signed by riders from across the country and abroad.
Displays cover the cycling clubs, the machines, the road itself and the extraordinary volume of traffic a Surrey village handled on a summer Sunday.
The bomb shelter
The museum has an air raid shelter that visitors can step down into and sit in, and it is consistently the thing people mention afterwards — adults as much as children.
Sitting in a confined space with the wartime displays around you conveys the Home Front more directly than any number of ration books in a case. Surrey lay under the approach routes to London and later beneath the V-1 flight paths, so the shelter is not a generic prop but a response to a threat this village genuinely faced.
The building itself
The museum occupies what was a branch of the National Westminster Bank until it closed in 1992, when the premises were donated to the Send and Ripley History Society.
That gift is the reason a village history group has a permanent public home on the main street, which is a rarity — most such societies meet in halls and store their collections in members' houses. The banking-hall proportions suit the displays, and the story of how a small charity acquired a High Street building is itself worth asking about.
The quarterly changing exhibition
Rather than a fixed permanent display, the society mounts a new themed exhibition roughly every three months, drawn from its own collections and from fresh research by members. Subjects rotate across village trades, schools, wartime, particular families, transport and anniversaries. The practice keeps the museum genuinely worth returning to and gives volunteers a research focus, and it often prompts further donations from visitors who recognise a face or a shopfront.
Ask what is currently showing before planning a visit.
Collections
The Send and Ripley History Society's collections cover the two Surrey parishes of Send and Ripley and the surrounding area. Holdings include objects, photographs, maps, documents, directories and parish material relating to village agriculture and brickmaking, the shops and trades of the High Street, schools, churches and chapels, and the families who lived there.
A particular strength is material on the Portsmouth Road — its coaching era and then its celebrated late nineteenth-century role as the Ripley Road, the most popular cycling run in England, centred on the Anchor Inn.
Wartime collections cover the Home Front, civil defence and the village's experience beneath the London approach routes, and include an air raid shelter visitors can enter. The main exhibition is rethemed roughly quarterly.
The quarterly exhibition
A themed display changed roughly every three months, drawn from the society's collections and research.
Wartime Ripley and the shelter
Home Front displays with an air raid shelter visitors can step into and sit in.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.