Shakespeare Birthplace Trust - Museums Department

Museums Department

The Museums Department is responsible for the care and display of all the historic museum items that the trust owns, principally items that relate to Shakespeare's life and times, which encompass a wide range of material. Other collections include items that represent the social and economic life of Stratford-upon-Avon, and a special collection of pewter, dating from Roman times until the present day. The Trust's Collections and Conservation Department is based in the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Trust owns various extensive collections:

• Archaeology

Roman and Anglo-Saxon artefacts from local sites including jewellery, weapons and ceramics. Also local fossils and prehistoric items.

• Art

Works of art relating to Shakespeare and to the history of Stratford-upon-Avon.

• Furniture and Furnishings

Domestic items dating from the 15th to the 19th century, particularly furniture dating from the 16th and 17th centuries.

• Numismatics

Coins and tokens found in Stratford and relating to Shakespeare. The collection also covers a period extending back to pre-Roman Celtic Britain.

• Pewter

The first Museum of British pewter based at Harvard House includes items ranging from Roman times to the 1930s, but has a strong core of 16th- and 17th-century pewter.

• Shakespeariana

Items linked to William Shakespeare himself.

• Social History

A wide range of objects illustrate the civic, social and working life of Stratford-upon-Avon through the ages.

• Textiles

Examples of Elizabethan embroidery and 17th-century painted cloths.