While our shop and main museum are open as usual this week, our exhibition room is closed until the weekend, as volunteers bustle around taking down the cemetery exhibition and setting up our next display, The Art of the Original Print, which opens on Saturday 1st December.

The museum is run entirely by volunteers, who carry out tasks including taking a shift in the museum and shop, working on marketing, organising special events and talks, and the thousand and one other tasks around running a museum – and that’s before you even start to think about organising exhibitions and displays!

We’d love to have more people on the team – the more people involved, the less the load on any individual, and after all, the museum is run for the benefit of the town.

In particular, at the moment we’re looking for someone who’s able to take on odd jobs around the building. Maybe you’re recently retired and looking for something to keep you involved in the town – or you know someone who would fit the bill!

But whatever you think you can help with, we’d love to hear from you. Please pop into the  museum to meet us for a chat, or email or phone for more information.

The museum is hiring! Although all the work of running the museum is done by volunteers, we’ve reached the point where we need to pay someone to help with the admin side. Please see the brief below on who we’re looking for and how to apply.

HBMT administrator advert

Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War 1, our new exhibition reveals a little of the town’s history at the time and the role it played in international events, as well as telling the stories of some of our more prominent townspeople who are buried in the local cemetery.

If you’ve driven from Herne Bay to Canterbury, or along the old Thanet Way from Greenhill towards the Canterbury Road, you will have spotted our local cemetery. On the side of a hill along Canterbury Road, it houses the remains of thousands of former residents of the town. Herne Bay Cemeterians, a group of local volunteers, have recently completed a project to transcribe all of the cemetery’s memorials, and are working to research further into some of the history of the site and its residents.

Our exhibition showcases some of that research, providing fascinating insight into this part of the town’s history, and explaining about the important work the researchers have done and are still carrying out – work that will provide a vital research source for decades and even centuries to come.

There are also two publications available to purchase from the museum written and published by the group.

Our new exhibition is now open to the public – The Red Rover tells the story of the paddle steamer and her sister ship, how she served the town, and how she contributed to the development of the town itself.

It’s a fascinating story, about the first tourists to visit the seaside. The pier was built so they didn’t have to transfer to rowing boats to come ashore, and coaches would take them on to other parts of the county.

Do visit the museum, have a good look around our exhibition and learn something new about our wonderful town!

Please note that the museum will be closed over Christmas from 24th December until 2nd January. Have a great Christmas, don’t forget to sort out photos for our exhibition and see you in the new year!

The museum celebrated the launch of the new exhibition on Friday evening with a private viewing. Beer Brothers kindly sponsored refreshments, and there was a chance to chat to Sara Tomlin, whose discovery of the drawings sparked off the whole exhibition, and Marian Heath, who created the Elsa dress from the original drawing.

Marian will be holding a talk on the making of the 1920s Elsa dress on Sunday 7th January at the museum.

The exhibition provides a fascinating look into clothes and fashion in the 1920s, from regular wear to party wear. Themed activities include talks for adults and opportunities for children to try out their own design skills, including a competition to design party clothes inspired by the exhibition.

The exhibition is open until 21st January 2018. The museum is open Tuesday-Friday 11-3 and weekends 11-4.