The Hanwell & Ealing Heritage Museum aims to show how people lived in during the 20th Century and the environment they lived in. Sited in the basement of Hanwell Community Centre, a former poor school attended by poor children from London, including Charlie Chaplin, the museum offers a display of everyday British domestic artefacts from the last hundred years but which are no longer in general use
. Also displayed are items of equipment in use in local shops during the last century. Notable collections include a large display of Corgi and Matchbox models showing modes of transport and carriage from 1960 to 1990, a range of enamel kitchen utensils from 1920s and 1930s, a range of different makes of sewing machines, and a range of tobacco and medical tins that were in general use. In addition there are files of advertisements from the Middlesex County Times, the local weekly newspaper, illustrating artefacts and clothing through the 20th Century. The museum affords an extensive resource of the local history of the Borough of Ealing and especially of the Hanwell, Greenford, Perivale, Northolt and Southall areas, with pictures, photographs and maps in addition to information, and offers access to the curator’s considerable research into Hanwell’s local history from 958 AD (CE) to the present day, drawn from sources not readily available to the public.
