This quaint little museum is a great place to head to for some local Sussex history and a taste of…read morethe attractive little town of Steyning. Its open all year round and there are permanent exhibits as well as temporary ones to look at. You need to phone ahead to book a visit but its ideal for a school group or if you are planning a nice country walk afterwards. There's a cute little shop there too if you want to buy some souvenirs!

The Steyning museum is a little room in a small town run by diminutive grandmamas containing an…read moreabundance of historical information. Everything that's happened in Steyning since prehistoric times is documented here, and brought to life in displays based on archaeological digs, donated artefacts and ancient maps. Its unpromising facade actually gives way to a surprisingly interesting hour or so of your time, even if you have no particular interest in local history for its own sake. Steyning was once situated on a navigable estuary of the Adur, and the small port town was home to all the shenanigans that port towns are susceptible to, such as smuggling, water-borne fighting and seedy public houses of ill repute. There is plenty of archaeological interest, and various anecdotes of local characters past and very nearly present, including Mr Potter and his bizarre collection of taxidermy, which was on display until just a few years ago. It isn't all macabre, however, and there are plenty of interactive exhibits and activities for children. The museum welcomes group visits, and there is even a little shop if you want to pick up some mementoes of your trip. If you find yourself at a loose end in Steyning, this is well worth a visit to absorb a couple of hours productively.

The location of this museum couldn't be more appropriate...as you enter the little door way from…read moreunder the the railway bridge, you feel as if you've opened a children's toy chest and walked right in! Whether toys are your thing or not, you won't be able to resist a pang of nostalgia as you look back at a hundred years of toy-making history. If you're too young to get excited by memories of toy train sets and wooden puppets, this is probably a perfect place to take your parents! And even if you don't remember the toys on display yourself, some of them are just plain amazing to look at- toy theatres and old-fashioned arcade games are among my favourite items on display. I'm no toy fanatic, but I like this place...it's really interesting to see how toy-making practices have evolved over the years. The central location and smaller size of the museum makes it a great place to pop into for a mini history lesson, when you've got a spare 10 minutes or an idle afternoon of wandering the Lanes. It also means you wont get museum fatigue!

Tucked away in one of the arches under Brighton's splendid Victorian railway station is this small,…read morebut perfectly formed, museum, housing the UK's foremost collection of toys and models. Centrepiece of the more than 10,000 items in its catalogue is a rare 'O' guage model railway layout, which runs at selected times (see web-site). But there are also substantial displays of puppets, dolls, tin-plate boats and buses, and dioramas of toy farms and military re-enactments. Many of the items are very rare, and the museum acts as a centre of expertise on such toys for the likes of Christie's auctioneers. The museum has a substantial education programme for children, and hosts visits by schools as well as individuals and families. As you'd expect, it's an excellent place to bring children, and the museum's web-site focuses very much on their needs. There's also a small shop to provide temptation afterwards! The museum also lays on events from time to time - see web-site for details. The museum can be a little difficult to find: emerging from the station, leave the entrance portico on the right hand side (by Marks & Spencer's), and Trafalgar Street is the road which descends steeply under the station's forecourt - the museum is actually underneath. Public transport (train and bus) is excellent, but car parking is a bit more tricky: however, there's an NCP car park a few blocks away.

Seaford Museum is a real gem. Situated in an old Napoleonic Martello Tower on the seafront at…read moreSeaford the museum contains an awful lot more than it appears from the outside. There are three floors containing a huge collection of.... well everything! There is not only a local history collection but a large array of other items from old fridges, computers, radios, militaria, clothing, radios, televisions... the list would go on for miles! There is an orginial bathing machine, a working model railway, recreations of old shops and rooms and regular temporary displays. You can climb onto the roof for super views along Seaford Bay - a great place to take photos on a sunny or stormy day. Bring along the kids as there are also two free "Owl Trails" one for young children and one for older children where they have to find the hidden owls and answer the clues. There are several small video displays and one particularly interesting film showing how Seaford Beach was constructed. There are different opening times for summer and winter so it is best to check out the web-site for opening times. I am a member of the Museum so my opinion is bias - but go along and see for yourself!

This is a small, local museum in the centre of the historic fishing town of Shoreham-by-Sea…read more Although Shoreham can feel these days more like a suburb of Brighton, it was by far the more important town for most of recorded history, being an important port from Saxon times, and probably before. Marlipins Museum is housed in a charming old building, dating from the 12th ans 13th centuries. It's one of the oldest secular buildings in Sussex, with a facade decorated with an attractive chequerboard design of Caen stone and flints. Oddly, the Museum's strange name isn't explained anywhere. The museum traces Shoreham's history as a trading town and fishing port from the 11th century onwards, and much of the small collection focuses on ships and shipping, with a fine series of watercolour and oil paintings of the harbour and various ships, and various bits of shipping paraphernalia. But the museum records much else besides: Shoreham was the departure point from which the future Charles II escaped after the English Civil War, and it played a key role in the defences of the South Coast until recent times - the remains of a 19th fort are still visible on the shoreline, as are the more scant remains of the World War II anti-aircraft radar station situated here. Shoreham was also - incredibly - a major centre of the early British film industry, and over a dozen films were made in Shoreham studios in the silent film era. This attracted a suitably bohemian set of actors and hangers on, who established the 'bungalow town' on Shoreham beach. And, of course, Shoreham's famous and beautiful art deco airport was the UK's first licensed airport, still in regular use. But the strangest story belongs to the building itself: recent excavations found an unexplained pit under the oldest part of the building, in which was buried the skeleton of a cat. Further digging uncovered the remain of a another three cats. Theories for these strange burials range from the ancient practice of burying cats to bring good luck, to the more prosaic idea that in mediaeval times the building housed a furrier manufacturer. One of the skeletons makes for a grisly display. The museum is small enough to keep the attention of children as you go around, and is fully accessible for wheelchairs, thanks to the lift in a small modern extension.

Marlipins Museum, on the Shoreham High Street (right next to the Marlipins Pub) is a brilliant…read morecombination of old and new, with one of the oldest lay buildings in Sussex linked to a modern two-storey building in a really tasteful manner. The displays are permanently running and mainly concentrate on Shoreham's maritime history and that of the River Adur. Also, which is a little known fact, Shoreham was once the hub for the UK's silent movie industry! They offer a popular Monday coffee morning so its the perfect place to head after a nice walk around Shoreham to find out some of the area's fascinating history.

All I can really say is that this place is incredibly small - two rooms small. However, the items…read moreon display are all worth stopping in to see. Worth a trip if you are relaxing on the Brighton shore, but don't make an extensive trek to see the fishing museum. And its free!

The museum is a tribute to Brighton before the Edwardians. Back when it was known as Brighthelmston…read more(hove was a separate hamlet), the local population mainly worked through the fishing industry. The museum is two rooms and the majority of it is filled by a 27ft fishing boat! Aside from that, expect your assortment of fishing paraphernalia, examples of knots, nets and some nice aquatic inspired artwork. It helps that the museum is set in the King's Road arches, where much of the original fishnig crrews operated from before the main industry moved on to Shoreham. If you are on the beach then this is a nice break from the pebbles and children will have fun checking out what is on display. If you are passing early in the day you can also take advantage of picking up some fish for your dinner, as some of the daily catch from Shoreham gets sent to the museum for sale. Since the waters around Brighton got cleaned up, I see no reason to get your fish from here over frozen and thawed cuts from a supermarket. A nice little slice of Brighton's history if you want to see one aspect of how the city has grown and changed over the last 200 years.

I LOVED the Brighton Museum. I was beyond pleasantly surprised…read more The museum is in a lovely building right beside the Royal Pavilion, so there is no reason why you cannot pay it a visit. The collections were rather hodgepodge, and sometimes it was difficult to figure out the connecting theme of what I was looking at, but everything was interesting - from the little alcove about Ancient Egypt to the Main Hall to the exhibits on Clothing as well as Modern Art (and I don't even care for modern art.) This museum also had a quality that escapes most others - it was great for both adults and children. I can easily say that, of all the sights I saw during my day in Brighton, this was definitely my favourite.

I always enjoy a visit to a museum, what's not to love about learning for free?…read moreSet in the heart of Brighton's Royal Pavillion gardens, you can really feel the culture when you visit the area. If you're stuck for ideas on what to do in Brighton when the weather is less than ideal, you could do much worse than making the trip here. Although small, the museum houses some interesting collections. My personal highlights are the Egyptology section and the history of Brighton room. Seeing the old photos of the west pier in all its glory and how the Pavillion looked over the years is fascinating.

So it's FREE. Donations requested. Very clean and friendly…read more Lots to look at. Mainly birds, butterfly's and skeletons but kids love it. Lots for them to do.

This little museum up by Seven Dials, just opposite Dyke Road Park, is a great hidden gem in…read moreBrighton. Its not, as the name may suggest, a museum of booths (which sounds rather dodgy I reckon) - rather, it's named after the founder Edward Booth! Instead you'll find bones, birds (LOTs of birds), butterflies and fossils. It wasn't the best experience of mine, as I find this kinda thing a bit creepy - but if it floats your boat, this is a really well organised/notated collection. Oh, and I should probably also mention, entry is freeeeee!

Hove museum and art gallery is small, but perfectly formed…read more It's not somewhere you'd make a beeline for, unless there was something of specific interest to you personally to see, but it can provide a pleasant enough distraction for an hour or so on a rainy day. It has recently been refurbished and upgraded to provide high quality temporary exhibition space. The museum is housed in one of Hove's grandest former mansions, a large Italianate house just to the west of the shopping area, half a mile from St Andrew's old church on Church Road. The highlight of the permanent collections is actually outside the museum: the Jaipur Gate. This was made for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 held in South Kensington, and moved here in 1926. It was paid for by the Maharaja of Jaipur, whose motto is inscribed on the front, in English, Sanskrit and Latin: 'where virtue is, there is victory'. It was carved by Indian craftsmen, although its design was concieved by two Englishment, and it combines both Mughal and Rajput elements. After recent conservation work, it is now in excellent condition. Inside, the ground floor provides two temporary exhibition spaces, a small shop and a tea room, which seemed very popular on my visit, and is probably worth knowing about in its own right. Upstairs are the four main areas of the permanent collection. Most important of these is the collection of early film and cinematic equipment. Brighton and Hove were important in early British film making, and a small film industry was based at Shoreham Beach in the days of silent films. The collection includes a wide selection of early film-making and projection equipment, and a small 8-seat 'cinema' where excerpts from early films and items for children are shown. The art gallery contains a handful of attractive works by European (mostly British) artists, although none are in the 'top flight' of European painting. Details of the collection are on the website (note that this covers Brighton's collection, too, which is wider ranging and more impressive). Next comes a small display of local history, which includes a small number of objects from local excavations from the bronze age to the mediaeval period, and includes the skull of a Saxon woman, important amber Bronze-age grave goods, items from a Saxon warrior burial, and pottery from a Roman villa excavated in nearby Southwick. Finally, there a lovely toy collection, displayed in an area especially designed for children, which seems very well done -the collection covers quite a wide range from the 18th to the present. The temporary collections cover local arts and crafts and, as ever with this kind of display, the quality varies a bit, although the presentation is excellently done. The shop sells cards, postcards and toys as well as small souvenir items. Entrance is free.

Whether you're visiting to see the museum's fascinating exhibits or tp sample the quaint delights…read moreof it's small but charming tea rooms you're sure to be satisfied by Hove Museum and Art gallery. I went a few months ago during a bike ride with the simple intention of grabbing a tea before heading home. Not only did I extend my order to include a slice of carrot cake and a scone but I had to take a trip round their free exhibitions including a fascinating collection of photos and extracts from Brighton's Herald Newspaper during Word War II. This is open until Jan 10th 2010 so head down soon. Of you're reading this after that date then I would imagine they've set up an equally interesting exhibition by now, as Brighton & Hove council seem to be quite skilled in such areas. If you've lived in Brighton for a while and not yet visited then you're missing out on a very educational and cost-effective excursion. I'd happily go again just for the cream tea and scones!