Salisbury Museum

An exhibit featuring a skeleton in a case labeled the Stonehenge Archer

The Salisbury Museum tells the story of a unique landscape which has been the cradle of continuous human achievement for over half a million years. 

The main strength of the museum rests in its archaeological collections: these include prehistoric material from South Wiltshire, including Stonehenge; the Pitt Rivers’ Wessex collection; and a fine medieval collection including finds from Old Sarum, Clarendon Palace and the city itself.

Based in the King’s House, a Grade I listed building located opposite Salisbury Cathedral, the museum building formerly housed a teacher training college and was the inspiration for an episode in Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure.

Contact

Address: The Salisbury Museum, The King’s House, 65 The Close, Salisbury, SP1 2EN

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Fashioning Our World

Unpicking the past to thread together the future The Salisbury Museum  Dorset Museum & Art Gallery   The Salisbury Museum’s Fashioning Our World project is showing young people how sustainable

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The Warminster Jewel, an Anglo Saxon aestel 871-899 AD. With kind permission of Salisbury Museum ©

The Warminster Jewel

The extraordinary ninth century AD bejewelled aestel found by metal detectorists From: The Salisbury Museum Found near Cley Hill, Warminster, in 1987; it’s the only one of its kind in

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Purple cape with white embroidery and fringing.

Millicent Fawcett’s cape

This purple cape is thought to have belonged to women’s suffrage campaigner, Millicent Fawcett. From: The Salisbury Museum The colours of suffrage Charlotte Fawcett donated this embroidered wool cape to

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Sawfish are also called carpenter sharks...but they are rays, not sharks!

There’s also a species called a sawshark, but that’s, well, a shark!

What the heck is a lek?

Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.

Road Runner!

The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.

Belly Buster!

The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!

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