Braintree District Museum traces its origins to a Museum room in the Town Hall that opened in 1928 to display the collections of Alfred Hills, a local clerk and historian and the Courtauld family. After a succession of different homes, today's Museum opened in the former Manor Street School on 6th October 1993. Since then the collections expanded from boundaries of Braintree and Bocking to the whole of the District of Braintree. Current collecting strengths include: archaeology, ceramics, local history, photographs and textiles.

A broad range of artefacts from the Museum's collections have been made available digitally on the East of England Sense of Place database. Here you can browse photos and descriptions of hundreds of our items, and search the collections of other local museums by going to the Search Page and choosing a museum of your choice from the drop-down menu.

The Museum collections are looked after by a team of staff and volunteers who provide:

- Care, management and interpretation of the collections.

- An enquiry and identification service.

- Advice and assistance to the other museums and heritage centres in the District.

Further details of the management of the collections can be found in the  Braintree District Museum Collections Management Policy 2006-2011.

Please send all e-mail enquiries to museum@braintree.gov.uk.

To explore our collections further, please use the category links in the navigation box (above left).