Wiltshire Museum

Did You Know?

• The Bush Barrow finds, excavated by William Cunnington in 1808, were displayed at the museum from 1883 until 1922, then loaned to the British Museum before returning to Devizes in 1985.
• Since 2013, the permanent exhibition Gold from the Time of Stonehenge has displayed 30 pieces of Early Bronze Age gold, including the Bush Barrow finds.

History

The society purchased a former grammar school on Long Street, south of the town's market place, to house the museum. It later expanded into two Georgian houses on either side and still occupies these premises. The museum's collection spans periods from the Palaeolithic through Neolithic, Bronze Age, Roman, Saxon, Mediaeval and more recent times. Among the prehistoric collections are items from the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, and several collections have been designated as significant parts of England's cultural heritage. A key collection is the finds from Bush Barrow, an early Bronze Age burial mound in the Stonehenge area excavated by William Cunnington in 1808. These finds, the richest from a Bronze Age grave in the Stonehenge Landscape, were acquired by the museum in 1883 and displayed until 1922, when they were indefinitely loaned to the British Museum. After a controversial restoration of the largest piece that may not reflect its original finish, the pieces returned to Devizes in 1985. The natural history collection includes remains of a plesiosaur called Bathyspondylus found at Swindon in 1774, first described in 1982 from the museum's specimens. On permanent display in the first floor galleries is a stained glass panel designed by John Piper and manufactured by David Wasley, commissioned in 1981 and installed in 1982. The rectangular backlit work depicts various antiquities set in a Wiltshire landscape, including the Cherhill White Horse, an avenue of Sarsen stones, the Devil's Den, Stonehenge urns, the Upton Lovell amber necklace and woolly-headed thistles.

Future premises

Since 2018, there has been an intention to relocate the museum to the derelict former Devizes Assize Court in the northwest quarter of Devizes town centre. In June 2023, the museum received £300,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop plans. A full award of £8,445,566 was decided upon in November 2025, and planning permission was received in August 2025, with hopes to reopen the building in 2030.