Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery

This exceptionally fine regional museum housed in Chillington Manor, a delightful Elizabethan manor house, boasts a rich and impressive variety of historical objects, fine art and natural history. Fine and decorative arts include European and British paintings, ceramics, glass, furniture, costumes and textiles from the 17th to 20th Centuries. An extensive archaeological collection contrasts artefacts from the Pre-historic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval periods, and an Egyptian collection including our own Mummy. The Japanese collection of Edo period ceramics, lacquer, metalwork and prints is one of the finest outside London.

The Natural History Galleries exhibit fascinating displays of British birds, bees and plants, butterflies and moths, fish, shells, nature conservation, skeletons and fossils including a whale, a mammoth and Maidstone's very own Dinosaur - the Iguanodon. The museum's Ethnography gallery is entitled 'Julius Brenchley - Gentleman Explorer' and contains the ethnographical collections of Maidstone's famous 19th century explorer and benefactor.

In Maidstone Museum's new Earth Heritage Gallery you will find ice age elephants and tigers. You can now meet the Sheppey Shark (50 million years old) from when Maidstone was a tropical sea. Re-acquaint yourself with your old friend Gasosaurus, and the flying reptile, Pterosaur. Meet our new dinosaurs, Velociraptor and nodosaur from the 'Jurassic' period. Find the bones of the Iguanodon and look for fossils under your feet. Come and join in our dinosaur and treasure hunts.

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