Museum - Wareham Town

Description:

Wareham Town Museum evolved from the Wareham Pictorial Museum, a private collection. When the Museum closed in 1974 Wareham Town Council acquired the collection and established a museum in St John's Hill. This moved to the Town Hall building in 1984. In 1998 the Museum was refurbished and expanded with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

There are a number of exhibits starting with Archaeology, tracing the history of human occupation of the Wareham area going back several hundred thousand years. Of particular interest is a collection of pottery made in the Wareham area during the Roman period with a reconstruction of a kiln found at the site of Bestwall near Wareham. There is also a reconstruction of an Iron Age pole lathe used for the manufacture of shale objects.

Displays also tell the story of Wareham as a port and market town, emphasising its key role in the clay industry and agricultural community.

The Museum moves on to Geology, where there are displays on the area's geological and mineral resources, clay, oil and gravel. There are also samples of rocks and fossils from the varied rock types of Purbeck.

Also there is the Lawrence of Arabia (T.E.Lawrence, 1888-1935) exhibit , a man who championed Arab independence during and after WWI. He lived in Bovington near Wareham from 1923 until his death in a road accident in 1935. A 63 minute DVD documentary titled " T E Lawrence - His Final Years in Dorset" has been produced by some of the Museum staff and is available to purchase.