Chippenham Museum

02/06/2026

Happy Volunteers' Week! 🌟

This week, we’re celebrating the incredible contributions our volunteers make to Chippenham Museum. Our brilliant team of more than 40 volunteers supports us by welcoming visitors, caring for our collection, and assisting with events and education sessions. Last year alone, they generously gave 4,826 hours of support across our service!

As part of this celebration, we asked our volunteers to share their experiences. Here is just one of their lovely responses:

“My name is Christine, and I am a Visitor Welcome Volunteer at Chippenham Museum. I have been volunteering here for nearly seven years now. After I retired, I felt I wanted something new to do, so when I saw a volunteer role advertised at the museum, I applied.

When you stop working, unless you are part of a club or community, you can sometimes feel disconnected, and volunteering can really change that. You become part of an organisation, feel that you are doing something worthwhile, and make new friends along the way.

In my role, I enjoy meeting the wide variety of people who visit, from local residents to international visitors. Some have interesting stories to tell, others come to see our exhibitions, and some simply spend a short while here before catching a bus.

The museum is a friendly and fascinating place, and there are opportunities to get involved in different roles depending on your skills and where you feel most comfortable.

I would recommend volunteering to anyone who has some spare time. After all, there are benefits for both you and the organisation. I certainly do not regret taking that first step!”

If this has inspired you to get involved in supporting your local community and the work we do here at Chippenham Museum, or if you would simply like to meet new people, please feel free to get in touch to learn more about volunteering.

01/06/2026

It’s exhibition installation week here at Chippenham Museum. While you wait for ‘Wiltshire and the World: John Aubrey and the Quest for Knowledge’ to open on Saturday 13 June, here’s a glimpse into one of Aubrey’s discoveries.

While exploring around Chippenham, Aubrey found stones shaped like shells. At Easton Piercy they were ‘full of small cockles’, with similar finds at Cocklebury, Kington St Michael and Draycott. Most people believed these were simply stones resembling shells, but Aubrey argued they were the remains of real sea creatures in landlocked Wiltshire.

We now know Wiltshire was covered by a warm tropical sea 180 million years ago. In the 17th century, however, this was a radical and controversial idea. Yet Aubrey calmly recorded what the evidence revealed.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the ‘formed stones’ that will be on display in the exhibition.

Learn more in this blog by historian Louise Ryland-Epton 🔗 bit.ly/4a7fyvB

31/05/2026

Discover the stories behind the artworks in our collection! 🎨🖼️

Join our free Collection Conversations series at Chippenham Museum, where artists from our Modern and Contemporary Art collection will discuss their work, sharing insights into their inspiration and creative practice. Each talk will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions, with audiences encouraged to join the conversation.

Here are the artists coming up in the second half of our 2026 programme:

Gordon Faulds & Alex Faulkner – Saturday 11 July
Jan Byrne & Guy Bigland – Saturday 8 August
Nicholas Herbert & Sarah Purvey – Saturday 12 September
Morag Ballard & Helen Simmonds – Saturday 10 October
Ellie Thompson & Sam Heath – Saturday 14 November

Get the dates in your diaries now and keep your eyes peeled, as tickets will be released monthly via Eventbrite. Follow our Eventbrite page to be notified when tickets go on sale.

📅 Monthly, Saturdays
🕒 2.00pm - 3.30pm
🎟️ Free, booking essential
🔗 bit.ly/ChippenhamMuseumEvents

30/05/2026

Today is the final day of our exhibition, 'Lady Chatterley’s Cover: The Book Designs of Stephen Russ', and we’re rounding it off by sharing all the dust jacket designs created by our young and very creative visitors!

In the past, dust jackets were used to protect the book underneath and were often thrown away after the book was sold. Today, the dust jacket is more about looking attractive in a bookshop and encouraging readers to pick up a book. With this in mind, we invited our visitors to explore the exhibition and look at the dust jackets and book covers designed by Stephen Russ before creating their very own dust jacket designs inspired by his work.

Some fantastic designs have been created and left for us to enjoy, now displayed pride of place within the exhibition and framing this painting very nicely, we think!

Thank you to everyone who visited this wonderful exhibition. We’re so pleased to hear how enjoyable and inspiring it has been for so many of you. We look forward to seeing you all soon for our next exhibition, 'Wiltshire and the World: John Aubrey and the Quest for Knowledge', opening on Saturday 13 June.

29/05/2026

It’s been another fantastic May Half Term here at Chippenham Museum! 🎨

This week, our drop-in activities were inspired by Local and Community History Month, featuring colourful collage pictures with a twist. Each artwork included a little piece of Chippenham’s history, using stamp-sized images of past buildings, events and people. To complete the pictures and show how we are all part of the town’s history and community, everyone added their own handprints, making it a truly fun, 'hands-on' history May!

We’re proud to offer free themed activities every school holiday, so stay tuned to see what’s coming up during the summer holidays. Here’s how you can stay up to date 👇

📧 Join the mailing list: bit.ly/ChippenhamMuseumNewsletter
📱 Follow us on social media: linktr.ee/ChippenhamMuseum
🛜 Visit our website: bit.ly/ChippenhamMuseum

27/05/2026

24/05/2026

LAST CHANCE to see ‘Lady Chatterley’s Cover: The Book Designs of Stephen Russ’! 📚

There’s just one week left to explore our exhibition celebrating the remarkable work of artist, designer and teacher Stephen Russ before it closes on Saturday 30 May.

From iconic Penguin cover designs to the famous phoenix motif created for DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover', the exhibition brings together decades of bold, inventive book design that helped shape the look of post-war publishing.

We’re also open tomorrow for Bank Holiday Monday, so if you’re wondering how to spend the day off, come and immerse yourself in a world of books, colour and design at Chippenham Museum!

Alongside the exhibition, our shop is filled with gifts and stationery inspired by the art of illustration and publishing, including hand-crocheted penguins, tote bags, prints and postcards, notebooks, badges, books and more.

The Museum Shop is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm. Can’t make it in person? Shop the collection online 🔗 bit.ly/ChippenhamMuseumOnlineShop

22/05/2026

#𝐈𝐂𝐘𝐌𝐈, we're open as usual throughout the Bank Holiday this weekend! ☀️

Make the most of the May Bank Holidays at Chippenham Museum! 💐

We’re open as usual for both May Bank Holidays, offering the perfect opportunity to enjoy a peaceful day surrounded by art and history. The Early May Bank Holiday also marks the start of the final week to see our current exhibition, 'Language of the Physical: Katherine Gili Sculpture,' which closes on Saturday 10 May, so don’t miss your chance to experience it...

🌻 Early May Bank Holiday (5 May): 10am – 4pm
🌼 Spring Bank Holiday (26 May): 10am – 4pm

Looking ahead, we’ll be running creative activities for all ages during May Half Term, so it’s the perfect time to plan a visit and get inspired. Keep an eye out for more details.

We look forward to welcoming you!

21/05/2026

Today's Art UK theme is bees and insects in celebration of World Bee Day 2026! 🐝

This is a cover proof design by Stephen Russ for Collins in the late 1940s. Celebrated in our current exhibition, 'Lady Chatterley's Cover: The Book Designs of Stephen Russ', he produced dozens of dust jacket designs from the 1940s to the 1970s, from standout jackets for Graham Greene first editions at Bodley Head to showcasing his versatility at Collins with designs ranging from nature books to the famous Collins Crime Club.

It is for his work for Penguin that he is perhaps best known, designing covers for the main orange series, the lesser-known music scores, and the highly collectible Penguin Poets series. The phoenix motif he designed for DH Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' became famous during the 1960 obscenity trial, appearing prominently in the subsequent marketing of the book, which helped turn it into a bestseller.

Discover more of Russ’s designs and learn about his career as a tutor at the renowned Bath Academy of Art in Corsham before the exhibition closes on Saturday 30 May. There is just over one week left!

🖼️ Cover proof design by Stephen Russ, late 1940s