Windsor and Royal Borough Museum is an Accredited, family friendly, accessible museum within the Guildhall, a Grade I listed building.
The collection is 70 years old and has been within the Guildhall for 40 years and in its current location for 10 years in March 2021. The collection represents local and social history and we have over 13,000 objects that relate to residents across the borough, with one of the best oral history collections in the South East.
We are the jewel in our Royal Borough’s crown. The Collection started in 1951 for an exhibition for the Festival of Britain in the Guildhall and Her Majesty the Queen opened the museum in its permanent home in 2011.
In 2019-20 we had over 65,000 visits to the museum, our library exhibitions around the borough and our online collection. We organised 100 events for over 2,000 residents including school group visits to the museum.
In 2019-20 we had 26 volunteers contribute to our service through welcoming visitors to the museum, giving tours and managing events. Our volunteers gave 636 tours of the Guildhall last year and gave 2,500 hours of their time to the service.
The museum has a daily online programme on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and on our Website, with podcasts exploring the Royal Borough, sharing interviews from local residents from our unique oral history collection. Minute Wonder on YouTube explores our collection online for families and we uncovered the hidden history of Roderick Maclean through the Citizens800 Project. During 2019-20 we digitised 320 objects and we continue to make our large collection available online
www.windsormuseum.org.uk.
During 2020 we are actively inviting residents to collect this period of history for future generations to learn from. Residents can share memories and experiences of Covid-19.
This project has started via a Facebook Group ‘Royal Borough Memory Box’
