Overview

Situated in Oxfordshire's Vale of White Horse, and historically part of the Royal County of Berkshire, the Vale & Downland is one of the most popular museums in the area. Described by the Museums and Galleries Commission as a 'model community museum', it attracts about 45,000 visits a year. It attracts both local people and tourists, about a quarter of visitors coming from beyond Oxfordshire and Berkshire. The museum has grown steadily from modest origins in 1958 and celebrates its Golden Jubilee in 2008. It provides:

• A Springboard to the Area - with the only gallery interpreting the story of the whole of the Vale of White Horse. The total available exhibition space is nearly 3,700 square feet (about 335 square metres) and about 3,000 objects are displayed.
• Community Focus - serving over 20,000 people in Wantage, Grove and the surrounding villages.
• Volunteering - opportunities for about 90 people, including some with disabilities or learning difficulties, to volunteer their time.
• Café - serving hot and cold beverages, wine, home-made cakes and lunches in a warm friendly atmosphere.
• Visitor Information Point - the Wantage area's tourist information facility.
• Art Gallery - where local and regional artists can exhibit their work.
• Temporary Exhibitions - a changing programme of exhibitions portraying local and national issues and events.
• Facilities for people with disabilities - include toilet, stairlift to the main gallery, wheelchair access to all ground floor areas, a wheelchair to borrow during visits and induction loops in the auditorium.
• Multimedia - local historians and technology company First Ideas have worked together to produce interactive displays for the galleries.
• Website - designed and maintained by First Ideas, the museum’s pioneering website is regularly updated and provides a useful archive of local history material.
• Services to Schools - The museum is host to many school parties each year and displays are geared to the National Curriculum.
• Family Friendly events - the museum is a founding member of the Family Friendly Museums initiative and regularly provides special Family Fun events.
• Photographic Collection - the first museum in Oxfordshire to have its complete photographic collection scanned onto computer. Thousands of images of the Vale have been indexed and copies are available for sale.
• Library - the museum has a small but useful local history library which, by prior arrangement, can be used by students and researchers.
• Oral History Archive - a project recording the memories of local people and reflecting the changing life of the Vale.
• Income Generation - the museum has to generate most of its own income. The hire of Lains Barn and any profit from the bookshop and café helps to keep the museum going.
• Regular funders - about a third of the museumís income comes from annual grants from the Vale of White Horse District Council, Wantage Town Council and Grove Parish Council.
• The Friends - the Museum Friends organisation has a membership of about 130. Through subscriptions, organised lectures and fundraising events, the Friends help provide financial and practical support.
• Craft Group - raises funds by organising an annual craft fair in Wantage.

The buildings

The museum entrance, Squires Room, Downland Kitchen and offices are in a converted 17th century cloth-merchant's house. It's a Grade 2 listed building and a fine example of local vernacular architecture. Behind it are the visitor facilities, in a 20th century extension with wooden crucks spanning two floors. The main gallery is also partly 20th century but includes the 18th century Hunt's Barn, kindly donated by Thomas More Eyston and moved from the nearby village of East Hendred. The stores, workshop, kitchen and library are in an adjoining building, known as Legge's Cottage.

The site was originally part of the medieval manor of Priorshold. The plot of land and the house were leased to Wantage tradesmen after the dissolution of the priory in 1538. Archives of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor show that the site was let to Alexander Doe in 1662 and then to William Hazell, a wheelwright, in 1683. Lawrence Hazell, a clothmaker, was responsible for the major rebuilding of the house in 1780, commemorated by the date stone bearing his initials over the central first storey window. In the mid-19th century the house became the doctor's surgery and remained so until 1974 - hence its present name, the Old Surgery.

In the mid 1970s, the newly-formed Vale of White Horse District Council bought the site and leased it to the museum trust to provide a new home for the museum. The Vale & Downland Museum Centre formally opened in 1983 and major improvements to the main gallery were completed in 1999.