64 and 64a Barton Street was given to the Borough in 1956 on the understanding that it would be used as the Town Museum. Not all members of the council thought this was a good idea. The Tewkesbury Register quoted some councillors as suggesting the idea was a ‘dead loss for the town’.
Sir George Dowty finally opened the museum in 1962. The delay was due to many necessary repairs and sitting tenants that did not leave until 1961.
The fact that there was no town museum until very late meant that many important artefacts were not kept or decayed because of a lack of appropriate storage space. A good example of this was the lack of relics of the stocking loom period (after Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire Tewkesbury was the most important centre of manufacture in the country)
The initial grant made to the museum was £ 100. to be paid annually from Gloucestershire County Council Despite large visitor numbers the museum had no full-time staff and a report written in 1973 by Miles and Fowler of Bristol University was devastatingly critical: ‘no conservation facilities exist and the library is meagre’.
One of the very special and practically unique displays in the museum is the fairground display built by AE Salt in the 1950s after he retired as a marine-engineer. He sold the exhibition to Tewkesbury Borough council in 1958.
The model was acquired by the museum in 1981 and has been partially restored. It is hoped that the Tewkesbury Fair Society may be able to reanimate the moving parts and visitors will be able to see this exhibit just as Mr Salt intended.
In the rose garden behind the Town Hall there used to be an entire model village showing many of the most important and historic buildings of Tewkesbury. This was dismantled in the late 1960s and the fronts of the buildings were retained and can now be viewed in the museum.
Tewkesbury Museum has many exhibits showing the history of the town throughout the turbulent 20th century. Visitors can see the effect of the two world wars on the life of ordinary citizens.
The key event in the history of the town that was of real importance in the history of England was the battle of Tewkesbury on May 4th 1471. This battle decided the fate of the house of Lancaster with the murder of the young prince Edward. The museum possesses a fine panorama of the battle field which it is essential to view before one walks the battle field site.
The museum is very child friendly and we have lots of dressing up clothes, Work-sheets and Quizzes