East Surrey MuseumWe have a dedicated Victorian Room which contains a changing range of Victorian objects of interest. We also have other Victorian items elsewhere in the museum, particularly in the Children’s Room.
Please note that not all of the objects in the gallery below may be on display when you visit.
How much do you know about the Victorian Era? Try our interactive quiz and find out!
This 17th century hunting knife, made from a copper and iron alloy, was discovered in Sanderstead. The museum acquired in mid 2026.
This jar is now empty, but in World War Two it would have been full of an ointment to treat wounds caused by a gas attack.
But there weren’t any gas attacks against British troops in WW2 – so why did the army provide ointments like this?
The jar is in our new items cabinet
The Book of Household Management by Mrs Beeton was a Victorian classic, first published in 1861, which sold 60,000 copies in the first year. It’s author, Isabella Mary Beeton, died four years later but her book was continually edited and republished until 150 years after her death; such was its influence that the Oxford English Dictionary states that by 1891 the term “Mrs Beeton” had become used as a generic name for a domestic authority.
It is in our “New Donations” cabinet. Come in and have a closer look at it.
This Swiss music box dates back to 1840, when it would have ben a very expensive item available only to the wealthy. It is fully functional, having been painstakingly restored in 2025. It is in a cabinet in our Victorian Room.
How many tunes do you think it played? How many similar music boxes are know to still exist? Come into the museum and find out.
You can find this in our Victorian Room. It’s a 19th century implement, from the days when flax was a major crop in the UK, being a key input to the burgeoning linen industry (especially in and around Belfast.) Other uses of flax include production of linseed oil (a wood treatment) and, especially in recent years, as a food supplement.
So, why was a “flax breaker” needed in Victorian time? And why did UK flax production decline dramatically in the last 150 years? Come into the museum and find out.
This is a fine example of the small, portable organs which were widely used to provide musical accompaniment to Church services held in open air or in small, remote churches, especially in the USA, from the 19th century onwards.
How does this organ work? When was this one made, and by whom? And why did small portable organs become known as “Trench Organs”? Come into our museum and find out.
And if you want to know more, there’s a lot more on this excellent podcast https://oldfrontline.co.uk/2023/08/12/great-war-music-with-beverley-palin/
Enjoy!
Information to be added shortly
We have an exhibition of over 30 local crested commemorative china ornaments in our Victorian room – please come and and have a look.
By “local”, we mean ornaments made for clubs, organisations and people in and around Caterham; some were made by British companies like W H Goss, Crafton & Sons, Parrott & Company (“Coronet Ware”); many of these companies were based in Stoke-on-Trent – and their products are highly collectible now.
In April 2000 we abolished entrance charges, and the museum has been free to visit ever since (although donations are, of course, welcome).
In 2002 we opened the East Surrey Room and started expanding our community outreach offerings, giving talks to both adults and children, often illustrated by mysterious artefacts extricated from heavy boxes lugged from one venue to the next. In the same year with the computerisation of the collections, thanks to the sterling efforts of unpaid volunteers.
In 2004 East Surrey MP Peter Ainsworth visited the museum, and he returned in 2006 to open a special exhibition celebrating 25 years of the East Surrey Museum. Our celebrations included hosting a sizeable Victorian re-enactment, giving c200 children some insights into Victorian life – possibly the best-attended event in our history.
In January 2006 the museum caught up with the times and established its first website.
In 2009 the museum acquired full accreditation with the Museums, Libraries and Arts Council, thereby confirming the role of the museum as one which provided an essential public and educational service and had policies in place to ensure the care, security and documentation of its collections.
In 2011, archaeology enthusiast Chris Taylor took over as curator and stayed for eight years – you can still see his stamp on many of the collections on display. Amongst other highlights of Chris’s tenure, the Children’s Room was completely revamped in 2013 and in 2014 we remembered the outbreak of World War I with a special exhibition showing how WW1 affected our locality.
After he left, Peter Connolly, the current curator took over, and has continued to develop the museum invarious ways, although Covid forced the closure of the museum for large parts of 2020 and 2021.
Temporary exhibitions have been a part of ESM’s yearly calendar since the early days, when our curator found that we had far more artefacts than we could display at any time.
In our early years we sometimes had as many as four temporary exhibitions on display concurrently, but nowadays we usually have only one (or occasionally two), with our Room 1 exhibition changing every 4-6 months.
Although some of our exhibition displays are sourced from our storeroom of artefacts, many of our exhibitions have predominantly featured items loaned to us by individuals or institutions. (If you own any interesting historical artefacts, we are always open to ideas!).
We’ve run over 100 special exhibitions since opening, on a wide variety of themes: some have been on a specific part of East Surrey, some have related to the locality during specific historical periods (e.g. “RAF Kenley during the Battle of Britain”); occasionally we’ve staged a re-creation of long-lost local building (e.g. “Peter’s general store” in Oxted High Street); and we’ve also run exhibitions on local railways, cricket in East Surrey, home entertainment in bygone days (including vintage radios and 78s), ‘Christmas Day in the Workhouse’, ‘A History of Board Games’, ‘East Surrey and the Sea’, ‘The Heyday of Postcards’, “The Caterham Players” and many, many more. (If you want to know more, all exhibitions up to 2017 are detailed in Ray Howgego’s “A History of East Surrey Museum”.)
The museum rapidly expanded its collections of artefacts in the early 1990s, including an early crystal radio receiver, a 150-year-old sewing machine, a mercury-filled electrical converter which powered a cinema projector, a Magneto Electric Machine which the makers claimed would heal nervous disorders (!), two large stone sleepers from the Surrey Iron Railway and many more.
In 1992, we also caught up with the times by investing in a “Word Processor” (which was cheaper than a multi-purpose PC back then), funded by Friends of the Museum.
In 1993 the museum was under threat when Tandridge District Council considered discontinuing our annual grant, but after many letters of protest had appeared in local newspapers, TDC decided to continue funding.
In 1994 we had our 50,000th visitor! In 1995 the museum closed for a short period while it was comprehensively redecorated.
In 1997 John Bushby retired after 9 years as curator.
We bought our first proper PC in 1999, but one Trustee observed that it “was deeply unpopular with some of the more Luddite volunteers” (!) – but there was no going back, and we have continued to improve our use of technology in the 21st century.
Most think of local museums as places that people go to see exhibitions and displays, but in the 21st century, more and more museums are reaching out to their local communities by bringing history to their communities, and offering engaging activities to younger people, as well as providing traditional museum displays.
East Surrey Museum has developed its offerings to the local community greatly over the years; our services have long included include giving talks to schools, and fun activities for young children in the museum during school holidays, but in recent years, demand for “loan boxes” of selected historical artefacts, particularly to schools and youth groups, has grown greatly, and we are putting on an increasing number of talks both in the museum and at schools, care homes and other locations, to engage the local community. One very recent development is that in 2023, we first participated in the “East Surrey Dig” in which may young people participated, discovering historical artefacts (some of which are on display in the museum) while learning some basics of archaeology and metal detecting. This has been very successful and we look forward to continuing it in future years.
The museum was a very dynamic place in its early years, sometimes runing four temporary display concurrently, but this level of change could not be sustained. The museum, however, proved to be popular and had its 10,000th visitor in 1982. A year later, the museum succesfully tried to engage young locals with a competition to design a Christmas card, with the winner being printed and sold in the museum. Engagement with children was further improved when uor Children’s Room was opened in 1986.
In 1987 we reached 30,000 visitors , including a visit by the distinguished Conservative cabinet minister Sir Geoffrey Howe.
When Lesley Ketteringham retired as Curator in 1988, John Bushby took over, and stayed for 9 years. A room in the museum is still named after John.
During the 1980s the museum acquired some of our favourite display items including our mascot, Rudolph.
In 1978 the present building was chosen and funding secured. The ground floor was converted for use as a museum under the direction of local architect, L. A. Long; the upper floor was retained to be used as a flat.
Meanwhile, the acquisition of artefacts to be displayed in the museum was so succesful that on opening day, there wasn’t enough space to display them all. This remains the case today.
The museum was officially opened at 10 a.m. on 10 May 1980 by the chairman of Tandridge District Council, William (‘Bill’) P. G. Maclachlan, accompanied by a party of invited guests. The doors were opened to the public at 11.30 that morning. Local archaeologist Lesley Ketteringham served as the museum’s first honorary curator, staying for 8 years in the post . In the first year Lesley organised forty-five separate displays, attracting over 6,000 paying visitors.
The museum is situated on the ground floor of a flint and brick house built around 1867/68 as a private dwelling, but which for most of its life doubled as a dentist’s surgery. When the last of the dentists retired in 1975 the building and surrounding land were bought by Tandridge District Council and for three years housed homeless families.
But members of the Bourne Society Archaeological Group, the most vociferous of whom was the local historian James Cockburn Batley, had advocated a new museum serving East Surrey for many years – when Tandridge ceased using the building for scoial housing, an opportunity arose.
It is probably Neolithic. During the Mesolithic (or Middle Stone Age), axe heads start to be polished, probably by using water and sand, but tools were still crude. The smoothness of this axe head suggest it is probably neolithic.
The advantage of having a smooth head is that it will sink deeper into any wood you chop.
It was found locally, in Lingfield.
It is estimated to be c200,000 years old and is therefore Paleolithic. The Paleolithic era is the earliest, and by far the longest, of the stone age eras, when man only used very crude stone tools for taks like cutting and carving. We are not sure where this item originated form as it was donated to the museum by an owner who had inherited it.
This jug has been dated as 12th Century. It was discovered in Alfold, on the Surrey / Sussex Border. You’ll notice that it’s a bit “rough and ready” compared to the 13th century jug, also discovered at Alfold, in the picture next to it.
It’s on display in the John Bushby room in East Surrey Museum, with a lot more medieval items. Please come and see them.
This jug has been dated as 13th Century. It was found in Alfold, on the Surrey / Sussex Border.
Want to know more? This jug, and other similar exhibits, are in the John Bushby room in East Surrey Museum.
Posey rings have messages engaraved on their insides, often secret messages of love. This one was found by a detectorist in Bletchingley in 2022.
If you’d like to know more about this item, visit the museum!
It’s a broken bronze spur, thought to date from the 15th century. It was found in Walingham.
A spur is a pointed device secured to a rider’s heel and used to urge on the horse he/she is riding.
We can’t be sure whether this tile dates to Norman or Saxon times, as it’s been dated to 11th-12th century, i.e. 1000 to 1199 AD, and the Norman period begins in 1066. Tiles of this type were mass-produced in Buckinghamshire, mostly for churches, but were often reused.
“Rudolph” was a high-class water jug, which diners would use to wash their fingers by pouring water through its nose! Owning this sort of item was probably a status symbol in medieval times, a bit like wearing expensive designer clothes nowadays.
A medieval seal was used to prove that a document was really from the person or group that it said it was from. In an era when many people were illiterate, this was very important!
The owner of a seal would melt some sealing wax with a candle and drip it where you want it to go and then press his seal into the wax as it cools. This was often used to “seal” an envelope.
Back in the 10th century AD (i.e. 900-999AD) this brooch would have probably been convered in shiny metal, either silver or tin.
People have always liked decorative objects – it’s not just a modern idea.