A showcase for Eynsham History & Heritage, based in the Bartholomew Room
Eynsham Museum & Heritage Centre (EMHC) is a long-term project which aims to establish a museum in the village, to display the history of this special place, tell fascinating stories of past lives, nurture the pride of the community for its roots and provide an inspiration for future generations. We will involve the community in our plans especially through contacts with the school and village groups.
The historic Market Hall building was refurbished by the Parish Council in 2021 and handed over to EMHC on a 25-year lease on 1 March 2023. We opened the Museum with 2 temporary exhibitions in August 2023 and hope to open fully with a “state of the art” permanent exhibition space in late in 2024.
We are a Registered Charity - Entry No. 1197006. We are entirely volunteer run with no core funding and will rely on fundraising efforts, grants, donations from individuals and regular donations from our “Friends” organisation for our projects, changing exhibitions and running costs.
We are seeking major grants and sponsorships to enable us to create an inspiring new exhibition space. We have been working hard on designs and costings to fit out the spaces for permanent and changing exhibits displaying aspects of Eynsham’s past as an important centre of culture, religion and learning. We are working with museum designers and lighting experts and preparing bids for major funding to make it a reality.
In the interim we have seized on the opportunity to use the spaces for temporary exhibitions. Our current exhibition upstairs on “Eynsham’s Lost Railway,” featuring a delightful working model of the railway station in its landscape, continues until the end of May 2024. Downstairs we have Eynsham in pictures “Then & Now.” Over 2000 visitors have come from the local area, Oxford, all over the UK and even worldwide. They have been fascinated by the window into a less hectic recent past the exhibitions offer and it has stimulated lots of memories and stories from visitors.
For the summer we are working on plans for an exhibition of “Eynsham’s Rural Past”. Any ideas, objects, pictures or documents etc you have/could loan would be very helpful. We welcome other ideas for future projects too. Please contact us (see below).
If you would like to help as a volunteer in the setting up / running of the Eynsham Museum please email us.
Our website- eynshammuseum.org.uk | Email us at - info@eynshammuseum.org.uk