Cuckfield Museum
The Museum is now CLOSED for winter maintenance.
We will re-open on SATURDAY 15th FEBRUARY 2024.
If you would like to contact us in the meantime please email info@cuckfieldmuseum.org
2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the first published identification of an iguanodon by Gideon Mantell. This was based on his fossil finds made in a quarry at Whitemans Green in Cuckfield.
To commemorate this there is a Sussex wide programme of events planned (see here for details) and we are delighted to be hosting a talk by local historian and Mantell enthusiast, Debby Matthews. The talk is entitled ‘The Life and Times of Gideon Mantell, discoverer of the Cuckfield iguanodon’ and will be held on THURSDAY 5th MARCH at 2.30pm in the Old School, Cuckfield. See here for further details.
You can find out more about Gideon Mantell and his important discoveries by going to our Dinosaur Discoveries page.
We’re delighted that we are now able to display a remarkable album which was given to the Museum a few years ago after being rescued from a skip during a house clearance. The album dates from the time of the First World War and belonged to a young girl called Joyce Bevan who lived at Woodcroft, now the Manor House in Manor Drive, Cuckfield.
Joyce volunteered as a VAD nurse working at the hospital in the Queen’s Hall during the war and her photographs show that the inside and outside of the hall have changed very little since that time.
The album has been restored with the aid of a grant from the Kleinwort Trust.
Follow the links at the top of the page to find out more about our Collection and Permanent Displays. As well as a sample of Cuckfield’s Heritage.
We are run entirely by volunteers and rely solely on donations from our supporters and members. See here for how you can help us. If you’d like to donate an object to the Museum, please complete our Object Donation Enquiry form which can be found here.
A number of Loan Boxes are available for schools. And we run a programme of Talks and Events throughout the year. Click on the Outreach tab for more information on these and other outreach activities.
Our normal opening
hours are:
Wednesday to Saturday
10am till 12.30pm.
Or by appointment.
You can find us at:
Queen’s Hall, High Street, Cuckfield RH17 5EL
Or contact us on 07857-815880 info@cuckfieldmuseum.org
Admission is free but, as the Museum is solely funded from voluntary contributions, donations are welcomed.
Or join us as a Friend or Patron
Cuckfield Museum opened in 1981 as an independent museum where we aim to provide an insight into Cuckfield’s community, culture and historic past stretching back to pre-history when dinosaurs roamed the area and where, millions of years later, the settlement of Cuckfield was established.
We have come a long way from our early beginnings. The basis of the Museum’s collection is derived from the banker and local philanthropist Richard Bevan (1834-1918), who was the leading instigator of the building of the Queen’s Hall in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The Bevan family bequeathed to Cuckfield a number of items from Horsgate, the house built for them in 1865.
Please browse our website for a flavour of what is on offer at the Museum.
