The new museum will open in 2026.

The museum has been in its current building since 1981. During this time the museum’s collection of objects and artefacts has grown to over 40,000 items. All these items have to be checked against the Museum’s catalogue before they are carefully moved to their new home at the Town Hall. To do this properly, we need time and space and so will take a considerable amount of staff time over the next year. After this, the Museum team will be working on getting the new museum at the Town Hall ready for opening in autumn 2025.

We are really excited to be taking Watford Museum ‘on the road’, with a series of ‘pop up museums’ over the next 18 months, starting during October 2023 half term.

Until the new Museum opens, the services and activities the Museum can offer will be different. Loan boxes As the collection is being catalogued, we will not be able to offer loan boxes until the new Museum opens. Available resources We do have some free downloadable resources here that might be helpful: https://www.watfordmuseum.org.uk/teacher-resources There may also be some information about significant Watford individuals for your planning later in the year here: https://www.watfordcentenary.com/top-100 Another useful planning website may be https://www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk/(https://www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk/) School visits We will not be offering school visits from October 2023. As soon as we can offer visits to new museum Available school activities We can still do educational / learning talks at schools or at other venues. Please email museum@watford.gov.uk(mailto:museum@watford.gov.uk) Research requests We will not be able to support these until the new Museum opens. Event bookings As the current building is closed, it will not be available to hold any event. If you need event space for a group or an activity, please contact: events@watford.gov.uk for advice. Work experience Whilst we won’t be able to offer work experience at the Museum, Watford BC does have a work experience scheme to offer opportunities to anyone interested in finding out about working in local government. Please contact: human.resources@watford.gov.uk (human.resources@watford.gov.uk) Volunteering We have welcomed some fantastic volunteers over the years who have supported the Museum and helped made the service such an important, and enjoyable, part of the town. The new Museum will be offering a range of volunteering opportunities when it opens. Taking donations We love receiving donations that tell Watford’s story and history. However, whilst we are managing the current collection for the move and ready exhibitions at the new museum, we cannot accept donations.

We have a website which covers the council’s Town Hall Quarter programme, which is a major programme of transformation and improvement, centred around our landmark Town Hall. As the new museum is going to be in the Town Hall, it is part of this programme and all the news and updates are posted on this website: https://www.watfordtownhallquarter.com/museum (https://www.watfordtownhallquarter.com/museum) The current Museum website will also be updated but we are planning on launching a new website, which will reflect our exciting new museum.

We are creating an exciting programme of activities and events for all ages for the new museum and would love to hear what people would like to see as part of the programme. You can let us know your thoughts about the activities programme as well as the plans for the new museum by completing our survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Watford-Museum-2023(https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Watford-Museum-2023)