The building
The museum occupies No. 19 Church Street, opposite the east end of the parish church. The house began as a timber-framed building with square panels of wattle and daub, standing on land that had belonged to the medieval manor of Priorshold. Records of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor show it let to Alexander Doe in 1662 and to William Hazell, a wheelwright, in 1683. In 1780 the clothmaker Lawrence Hazell rebuilt the front in brick; his datestone is over a first-floor window. From the mid-19th century the house was the town’s doctors’ surgery, and it stayed so until 1974, which is why many older residents still call it the Old Surgery.
The Vale and Downland Museum Trust was formed in 1972. The new Vale of White Horse District Council bought the site in the mid-1970s and leased it to the trust, and the museum was opened by the Duchess of Devonshire on 29 September 1983. The old house is joined to a modern extension and to an 18th-century timber barn that originally stood at East Hendred; it was taken down, moved to Wantage and rebuilt as a gallery. The galleries were refurbished in 1999 with lottery funding, and a further extension for the café kitchen, office and store followed in 2012.
What you can see
- A gallery on King Alfred, with a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon house and a facsimile of Asser’s Life of King Alfred, the text that names Wantage as his birthplace.
- The surviving fragment of Wantage’s market cross, put up in 1580. It is octagonal, with weathered figures of saints in niches, and had stood in gardens in Newbury Street and in the council offices before it came here.
- Displays on the town’s old trades of tanning, sackcloth and rope-making, and on the Ormond family of apothecaries.
- A gallery on the Wantage Tramway, with a reconstructed tramcar interior, and a model railway showing Wantage Road and Challow stations.
- Material on Sir John Betjeman and the jockey Lester Piggott, both linked with Wantage.
Visiting
The museum publishes its opening hours as Monday to Saturday, 9.30am to 3.45pm, with last admission at 3.30pm; it is closed on Sundays and bank holidays. Entry to the galleries is free, with donations welcome. There is a café with a garden terrace. Parking is in the town car parks. Check the museum’s website before travelling, as times can change.
Nearby
The parish church is directly opposite, and the Market Place with King Alfred’s statue is a few steps north. The Betjeman Millennium Park is close by to the west.