Visiting Museums in Essex

With over 80 museums in Essex, there is something for everyone. Many museums are available for casual visits, group bookings, school or other educational groups, and some can be used as venues for corporate entertaining, and parties. Many have outreach activities and programme special events. For further information about museums download our Real Essex Guide to Museums, or for a hardcopy contact your local tourist information centre or call us on 01245 244666.

Be a museum visitor

There are over 80 museums in Essex, preserving and displaying our rich heritage. They vary from well known visitor attractions like Colchester Castle, to small volunteer-run local history museums like Burnham-on-Crouch Museum. Most are open to casual visitors, but some smaller museums have limited opening hours, so it is worth ringing ahead.

The range of subjects displayed in our museums will take your breath away – from agriculture to maritime history; fine art to natural history; local crafts to science and industry; ancient Egypt to local history.

Many museums collect and display the history of their area, for example, the larger museums in the county:

Some museums cover specialist subjects like:

Other ways to find out about our museums why not explore the the 24 hour museum webiste on www.24hourmuseum.co.uk and type in "Essex". Or you can see the collections of 25 museums in the county online at www.eesop-e.co.uk . Your local tourist information or library will also be able to help.