About The Museum

Uffington’s Old Schoolroom was built in 1617. John Little, who lived in the village, developed the idea of setting up the Museum and he opened it in 1984. All the exhibits acquired since then have been donated, mostly by residents of the villages of Uffington, Woolstone and Baulking who are keen to have the history of the area preserved. On John Little’s death in 1986, his widow Joan donated his collection of 136 different editions of “Tom Brown’s School Days” to the Museum.
Hugh Shorten took over as Curator and continued until 1993.
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Sharon Smith was our Curator from 1994 to 2015. In co-operation with Jane Cooper, then chair of our Friends organisation, Sharon managed many projects to discover, commemorate and record aspects of our history and made the Museum much more widely known.
  
Karen Pilcher took charge in 2016 until 2022 and has returned as Curator for 2024, with Garry Gibbons curating the successful 'Archie and the Poet' exhibition in 2023. 
Past Museum projects include:    ​
  •     in 2000, a Millennium Survey of the village and celebrations on White Horse Hill
  •     in 2002, a professional archaeological dig on the outskirts of the village
  •     in 2003/4, a book about the relationship between the White Horse and Uffington
  •     in 2012/13, research and publication of a book telling the story of the Uffington Enclosure Award of 1778
  •     in 2013/4, the collection of census, war service and photographic material on the people of Uffington who served in       the 1914-18 war
  •     in 2018 the project to restore this 400 year old building to a proper state of repair was completed in August. We are very grateful to the many individuals and organisations who contributed to the funding, including the North Wessex Downs LEADER Programme
  •  in 2021 a path was installed to improve access to the building and in 2023 a new heating system installed  
We have also produced and published a number of booklets and guides, which are on sale in the Museum. A large number of old photographs and documents are in our collection. They have all been catalogued and are available to researchers.