Museum and visitor information: closed today. Next open , 10.00–15.30

The Vengerberg TrustVengerberg Museum and Visitor Information

Vengerberg Museum

The museum of the town and its people, in the Old Grammar School on Sheep Street, two minutes’ walk from the Market Square. Run by the Vengerberg Trust and its volunteers since 1964.

Five galleries over two floors tell the story of Vengerberg from the Bronze Age barrow on Beacon Hill to the floods of 2007: the market and its charter, the river and the mill, the grammar school, and the legend of the Lilac Sorceress, whose statue stands in the Market Square. Admission is free.

The visitor information point is in the museum foyer and keeps the same hours.

Drawing of the Old Grammar School on Sheep Street, home of Vengerberg Museum1558
The Old Grammar School from Sheep Street. The museum entrance is the door under the date stone; the step-free entrance is through the gate on the left, beside the west wing.

The galleries

  • The Market Town

    Ground floor, front

    The market charter of 1252, the Thursday market and the trades of the Market Square and the Shambles: weights and measures, the borough’s pewter pint, shop signs, and the ledgers of Pargeter’s brewery.

  • River and Mill

    Ground floor, rear

    The Pontar, its fish, its boats and its floods. The Flood Bell of 1652, a model of the Town Mill as it was in 1890, the eel traps from the weir, and the five flood marks shown at their true heights.

  • The Old Schoolroom

    Ground floor, west wing

    The grammar school’s schoolroom of 1558, kept as it was when the school closed in 1909, with the master’s desk, the benches and the names cut into them. Used for school visits on weekday mornings.

  • The Lilac Room

    First floor

    The legend of the Lilac Sorceress as the town has told it, the plaster model for the statue in the Market Square, a hundred and twenty years of Lilac Fair posters, and the cordial committee’s bottles back to 1953.

  • Upper Gallery

    First floor

    Changing exhibitions, two or three a year, from the collection and from local groups. Closed for rewiring over the winter.

More about the galleries

Visiting with children

Every gallery has something to open, lift or try on. There is a free family trail at the desk, changed each season, and the Old Schoolroom has slates and chalk at weekends. Pushchairs can be left in the foyer. There is a baby-changing table in the accessible toilet.

Children under 12 must be with an adult.

Groups

We welcome groups of up to 30. For groups of ten or more please let us know when you are coming, so that we can make sure the galleries are not already busy with a school. A volunteer guide can show your group round the museum, or lead the Town Trail, for £4 a person (minimum £40). Please call the museum desk or email museum@vengerberg.org.

School visits

Taught sessions for Key Stages 1 to 3 on weekday mornings in term time, including the Victorian schoolroom, the river and the floods, and the market town. School visits has the sessions, prices and how to book.

Research and the Study Room

The collection numbers about 14,600 objects, photographs and documents, of which about 900 are on display. Researchers can see items from the store, and use the parish and borough material we hold, by appointment in the Study Room on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. See Research and the Study Room and the collections catalogue.

The building

The Old Grammar School was built in 1558 for the free school founded under the will of Thomas Corbet, a wool merchant of the town, and enlarged in 1712 and 1836. The school moved to new buildings on Station Road in 1909, and the old building served as a drill hall, the borough’s rate office and, in the Second World War, a British Restaurant. The borough council let it to the Vengerberg and District Historical Society for a museum in 1964, and the Trust bought the freehold from the town council in 1999.

The building is listed. The schoolroom’s roof timbers are original, and the date stone over the Sheep Street door reads 1558, although the door itself is of 1836.

Shop

The shop at the desk sells walk leaflets, local history books, postcards of the drawings on this website, Lilac Fair posters, and, in May, the cordial. We take cash and cards.