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Tuesday 10am - 4pm Wednesday 10am - 4pm Thursday 10am - 4pm Friday 10am - 4pm Saturday 10am - 4pm

Braintree District Museum

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Braintree District Museum

Braintree District Museum presents the timeline of an important market town and its surroundings.
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Museum Admission
Adult: £5.00
Concessions: £4.00
Children: £3.00 (under 5's free)

At Braintree District Museum the story of the District and its diverse industrial and commercial history unfolds. The Main Galleries examine the development of the area from prehistory to the twenty-first century, focusing upon the textile and manufacturing industries of Courtaulds, Warners and Crittalls, as well as

displays of Castle Hedingham pottery, the work of the Great Bardfield artists and Essex straw and lace. A vibrant calendar of temporary exhibitions complements the Main Galleries throughout the year. The Museum is housed in the converted Victorian Manor Street Junior and Infant Schools that were built in 1862 and 1897 respectively. The main building is home to the Museum Reception and Shop; Temporary Exhibition Gallery; Main Galleries and Victorian Schoolroom. Braintree Museum offers a wide variety of themed activities, exhibitions and school resources throughout the year, and the characterful Museum Shop is a unique retail outlet to the town.

05/09/2026

Don't miss out on our FREE guided Football Town Tour!

Part of Heritage Open Days
This tour will complement the current exhibition: Football! A Local History of the Beautiful Game.

Saturday 19 September
The tour starts at 10.30am and finish at Braintree Museum and will go around Braintree town centre and last about 1 hour.
Limited spaces

Tickets can be booked here https://www.ticketsource.com/braintree-museum/braintree-history-town-tours-football/e-evykvaor by calling 01376 328868

04/09/2026

Last tickets remaining for Heritage Open Days 2026!
https://www.ticketsource.com/braintree-museum

This year the Warner Textile Archive will open its doors with an exclusive Behind the Scenes Tour of Everyday Histories: The People who Made Warner & Sons

Only tickets for our Saturday date 19th September 11am remain.

Imagine taking your daily commute to the large sprawling factory of New Mills in Braintree, Essex, owned by Warner & Sons, to weave silks destined for the grandest homes in the world, or meet with your fellow industrial designers to create patterns that will shape the history of interior design. This behind the scenes tour offers you the chance to step into the role of weaver, designer, block-printer, sales representative and interior decorator to understand the process of initial design idea through to finished textile. We will journey through this development with important textiles designed and made by Warner & Sons, illustrating how specific roles working together contributed to building a business that led the way in furnishing textile design and manufacture across the centuries.
Tours last about an hour.
Braintree Museum can also be visited and don't forget about our lovely cafe Something Scrummy!

Please remember:
There is no parking on-site. There are a variety of pay and display car parks in Braintree town centre.
We are a short walk from both Braintree bus station and railway station.
Warner Textile Archive is accessible for wheelchairs.

02/09/2026

Buddy's Braintree Football Facts

This week Buddy has found a fascinating fact about how local football worked in 1911.

A new rule was that if you were part of a factory team you had to work for that factory or company.

The Manor Works team therefore all had to work for Crittalls and from the article it looks like some of the players didn’t!

Want to explore more about the local history of football? Come visit the exhibition Football! A Local History of the Beautiful Game on till 24th December.

31/08/2026

FREE!

We have 35 brown stackable chairs available free of charge.🪑
Preferably to be taken as one lot.
Collection from Braintree Museum only

Interested? Send us a DM or call 01376 328868

29/08/2026

We have been nominated!

Thank you to all of you that nominated us to go through to the final round of voting for the Essex Mums Awards 2026

We are in the "Best Museum" category.

Please vote for us here https://www.essexmums.com/essex-mums-awards/voting/

Why vote for us?

“Favourite place in town! Great for children.”
“Very interactive both for myself and my 3 year old granddaughter.”
“Excellent and outstanding information for children to experience the past.”

We aim to make the museum and exhibitions a place where everyone can engage and have fun with our displays.
We have interactives all around the museum from smell boxes to weaving activities and our popular immersive classroom and dressing up areas. We also include discussion prompts to help families have meaningful conversations about our exhibits and offer trails for different age ranges through our exhibitions.
There is an ample range of seating throughout the museum.
We have changing facilities and products and welcome breastfeeding.
We don’t have a buggy park but our front of house team can recommend safe locations around the museum.
We can offer a quiet space should it be needed at any point during a visit. Our quietest times are usually between 2pm and 4pm.
We have signed the Kids in Museums Manifesto, a public pledge to provide welcoming, accessible, and engaging experiences for children, young people, and families.

26/08/2026

It's Buddy’s Braintree Football Facts time again

Buddy has found and article dated 1911.
This was a very successful year for the Manor Works men’s team. They won three trophies and had them all on display during their annual dinner at the Boars Head! Buddy particularly liked that fact.

Stay tuned for what Buddy finds next week!

In the meantime why not visit the exhibition Football! A Local History of the Beautiful Game at Braintree Museum. The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm. Admission applies.

24/08/2026

We have two old coffee grinders on display at the Museum as our object of the month

By the 1750s coffee had become a popular drink worldwide. It became fashionable amongst the wealthy to have the beans ground at home. Simply designed, these hand-cranked grinders were often made entirely of wood.

The urn-shaped wooden grinder pictured dates from the late-1700s. Within the structure there are metal burrs that would have been turned by hand to ground the coffee to drop into the bottom compartment.

Pop into the Museum to see the other coffee grinder that dates back to the 1800s.

22/08/2026

To celebrate the upcoming Heritage Open Days in September we are offering a FREE guided Football Town Tour!

This tour will complement the current exhibition: Football! A Local History of the Beautiful Game.

Saturday 19 September
The tour starts at 10.30am and finish at Braintree Museum and will go around Braintree town centre and last about 1 hour.

Tickets can be booked here https://www.ticketsource.com/braintree-museum/braintree-history-town-tours-football/e-evykvaor by calling 01376 328868

18/08/2026

Buddy's Braintree Football Facts: Another one for the girls!

This week Buddy has discovered a newspaper article dated 1918 with pictures!

The pictures show a match between Braintree Manor Works team play the Ipswich Orwell Works. “Braintree were very keen on the ball” and the match resulted in a goalless draw.

Don’t forget to visit the exhibition Football! A Local History of the Beautiful Game at Braintree Museum. The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm. Admission applies.

12/08/2026

Buddy has been helping the Museum find fascinating facts about the history of football in Braintree to share with you.

This week he's spotted something in one of our old football programmes! A wonderful advert for football boots. How different they are to the boots worn today.
The price for the boot would have been 46 shillings and 9 pence. In today's money that would be about £170

We have a large range of football programmes on display in the exhibition Football! A Local History of the Beautiful Game at Braintree Museum. The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm. Admission applies.

Address

Manor Street
Braintree
CM73HW

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Wednesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm
Saturday	10am - 4pm

Telephone

+441376328868

Website

http://www.braintreemuseum.co.uk/

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