Halesworth and District Museum

The Museum was founded in 1984 and has always been in the care of volunteers. In 2000 it moved from the town's 17th Century Alms Houses to the newly refurbished station building. Railway Heritage paid for the restoration of the station's unique movable platforms and these are on view in their original position next to the station and a working model can be seen in the museum.

Exhibitions include a fine collection of rocks and fossils, picked up nearly half a million years ago by the Anglian Ice Advance and left near Halesworth when the ice melted. There are also Cretaceous fossils of over 70 million years old, including large ammonites, Sea Urchins and Belemnites. There are award winning Archaeology displays which include a 250,000 year old flint hand-axe and tools used 10,000 years ago by nomadic hunter-gatherers who camped near the Town River.

Saxon and Medieval items show the growth of the town from a rural settlement to the fastest growing town in East Anglia (1600AD). Excavations show that in the middle ages leadsmiths, bronze workers, cloth-workers and potters were all trading in Halesworth.