Blandford Fashion Museum

Museum displaying original women's men's and children's fashions of the past, set in a Dorset Georgian townhouse
Open Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday - 10. 00-4. 30, last entry half an hour before closing

The Blandford Fashion Museum is situated in the small Georgian market town of Blandford Forum, in the heart of the rural English county of Dorset.

The museum is located in the town centre, just up from the corn exchange, market place and parish church. It is in an attractive and typically Georgian town-house which was erected following the great fire of 1731 which razed the town's then timber buildings to the ground. In the subsequent years, architects John and William Bastard (students of Sir Christopher Wren) designed and rebuilt the town, making Blandford Forum a rare and unique example of a Georgian town. Our museum building, Lime Tree House, was designed by the Bastard brothers to house their five sisters.

We opened to the public in 1996. Previous to this the collection - belonging to local lady Betty Penny - used to tour the UK as Mrs Penny's Cavalcade of Costume. It raised almost £500 000 for charity over the years, and for her work Betty Penny was awarded an MBE. Since the collection has had its permanent home here in Blandford we have more than doubled the number of items in the collection, thanks to items being kindly donated. We currently have over 4000 outfits, garments and accessories in the collection, which dates from the mid-eighteenth century up to the late twentieth century. Sympathetic conservation of items along with cataloguing and accurate dating is of the utmost importance to us as an accredited museum.

Two to four new displays are mounted each year. Displays are housed in eleven rooms of the Georgian house and include our Georgian Parlour, our Victorian Parlour, an accessories room and a room dedicated to local industry and rural attire (which displays Dorset Buttons, lace, bonnets and a traditional farmer's smock). A further room accommodates our pretty traditional tearoom, which has its own attractive courtyard garden. We also have a resources room, where students of historical fashion and textiles can arrange to come and study items in our collection close-up. In our lecture room talks are given periodically by professionals in the field of historical dress, fashion, costume, textiles or needlework, and groups booked in to visit the museum can be given an introduction to the museum and its collection.

We have activities for children visiting the museum, including a children's area with clothes to dress up in (bonnets, pinafores, flat caps, waistcoats, top hat, kid gloves and even a replica Victorian corset and crinoline), dolls dressed in period costume to play with in their dolls' house (a miniature version of our own Georgian building). Children can also make drawings and rubbings of an outfit of their own design and put it up on the noticeboard, find answers to the questions in the children's trail, and spot the Betty dolls that are hiding around the museum.

The Blandford Fashion Museum is run entirely by volunteers and relies on the proceeds from entrance tickets and the tearoom in order to maintain its unique collection. Over the years our museum has gained a reputation for its beautiful exhibits and its friendly atmosphere.

The museum and tearoom are open Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10. 30-5pm from Easter to September, and 10. 30-4pm from October to November. We close each winter from early December to mid-February.

Current admission rates: Adults: £5, Over-60s: £4. 50, Students: £2. 50, 7-16 year-olds: £1. 50, Under-7s: free of charge, Carers: free of charge.

The museum and tearoom offer you a warm welcome.