Much more than just a local history and archaeology museum!
Dover Museum and Bronze Age Boat Gallery tells the story of the town and port since prehistoric times, with four galleries over three floors behind the building's original Victorian façade.
The ground floor gallery traces Dover’s history from the Stone Age to the Saxons, including the building of Dover’s Roman forts, and displays of local archaeological finds and outstanding Saxon jewellery from the British Museum’s collection.
The story continues in the first floor History Gallery, the largest in the museum. Scale models chart the development of the growing town and port, surrounded by cases of the best of the museum’s collection – see armour, art, and dioramas of Dover’s past. A section of this gallery covers Frontline Dover and the town’s vital role in wartime Britain.
Temporary and stairwell exhibitions
The mezzanine gallery and front stairwell host annually changing exhibitions covering all aspects of the district’s history. Past subjects include The Dover Pageant, Operation Dynamo, Smuggling and The Goodwin Sands.
The back stairwell displays a permanent exhibition about channel swimming, with tales of this amazing feat of endurance from Captain Matthew Webb in 1875 to the present day.
Visitors unable to access the stairs can borrow copies of the exhibition panels from the front desk.