Wilton's

As previewed a few weeks ago, our dedicated history and heritage room has now been launched. The room is currently open to the public from 2pm to 6pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and we aim to increase these opening hours gradually during the course of next year. You will also visit the John Wilton room as part of our regular Monday evening History Tour or if you book a private tour for 15 people or more.

 As well as our lovely history banners, the room is now home to a fascinating selection of displays, installations and objects, each of which explores an aspect of Wilton's heritage in its own distinctive style.



Our five volunteers created four displays inspired objects from our archaeology collection: an original footlight found under the auditorium; clay pipes and gun parts discovered under the floors; moulded plasterwork from different parts of the building; and a fragment of wallpaper still clinging to a piece of the wall.

There is also an intricate model of each of the three floors of the Wilton's building created using 3D printing technology and an interactive audio/visual installation to transport you back to the world of Wilton's Music Hall in the 1860s.

To mark the opening of the John Wilton Room, we held a special launch event and were fortunate to have among our guests direct descendants of John Wilton himself  and of other people who lived and worked in the shops and houses in front of the hall.


John Wilton's descendants examining old family photographs with our Historian, Carole

The exhibits also proved very popular during our Magic of Music Hall Scene in Time weekender:



Do come and visit - we look forward to seeing you there!