This list of museums in East Sussex, England contains museums which are defined for this context as institutions (including nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private businesses) that collect and care for objects of cultural, artistic, scientific, or historical interest and make their collections or related exhibits available for public viewing. Also included are non-profit art galleries and university art galleries. Museums that exist only in cyberspace (i.e., virtual museums) are not included.
| Name | Image | Town/City | Region | Type | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History | Operated by the English Heritage, includes the abbey ruins, visitor centre, battlefield site | ||||
| Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 14th century Wealden hall house with a thatched roof | ||||
| Historic house | 15th century hall house with local history displays, furniture and decorative items from different periods | ||||
| Rother | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 17th-century house owned by author Rudyard Kipling, includes working watermill | |||
| Battle Museum of Local History | Rother | Local | website, local history, prehistoric, Roman, medieval, 17th/18th centuries, and local industries such as iron, leather and gunpowder | ||
| Wealden | Multiple | Palladian mansion with furnishings, automobile museum, gardens, wildfowl reserve, miniature steam train, woodlands | |||
| Rother | Multiple | Local history, natural history, fashion, dinosaurs, stone-age life, Ancient Egyptians, military, world cultures, British motor racing | |||
| Lewes | Transport | Heritage railway with museum displays at the Sheffield Park railway station | |||
| Rother | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 14th century moated castle in ruins, periodic living history demonstrations | |||
| Natural history | Victorian-style dioramas of British birds in their habitat settings, butterflies, British fossils, animal bones | ||||
| Rother | Technology | Former waterworks with working steam engines | |||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Maritime | Local fishing industry, boats | ||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Multiple | Art, decorative arts, natural history, puppets, fashion, world culture artifacts, Egyptian artifacts, local history | ||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Toy | Formerly the Sussex Toy And Model Museum, toys, dolls, model trains, puppets, penny arcade games | ||
| Brighton and Hove | Technology | Victorian pumping station with beam engines, planned museum | |||
| Lewes | Historic house | Country home of the Bloomsbury group, interior decorations by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, exhibit gallery for fine and decorative art | |||
| Rother | Art | Contemporary arts centre | |||
| Lewes | Art | website, local art, crafts and applied art | |||
| Local | website, operated by the Eastbourne Society | ||||
| Eastbourne RNLI Museum | Eastbourne | Maritime | website, history of area lifeboat rescuing, operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution | ||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Art | website, located in a former church, contemporary visual arts exhibitions | ||
| Wealden | Art | Home of photographer Lee Miller and biographer of Picasso, Roland Penrose, exhibits of Surrealist and Modern art | |||
| Lewes | Historic house | 18th-century country estate with fine art and furnishings, gardens | |||
| Flower Makers' Museum | Hastings | Textile | information, original company tools of the trade, machines and fabrics for making artificial flowers | ||
| Lewes | Historic house | Elizabethan manor house, gardens | |||
| Brighton and Hove | Multiple | website, local history, art | |||
| Rother | Historic house | Medieval timber-framed manor house, Arts and Crafts style gardens | |||
| Maritime | Local fishing industry, boats, The Stade | ||||
| Hastings History House | Hastings | Hastings | Local | website, local history, operated by the Old Hastings Preservation Society | |
| Hastings Lifeboat Station | Hastings | Hastings | Maritime | website, visitor centre with film, viewing of the lifeboats | |
| Hastings | Hastings | Multiple | Art, local history, art and artifacts of the Indian subcontinent, decorative arts, natural history, Native American artifacts | ||
| Lewes | Mill | Early 19th century windmill | |||
| Herstmonceux Museum | Herstmonceux | Wealden | History | old electricity generating station, operated by the Lime Park Heritage Trust[1] | |
| Brighton and Hove | Multiple | Art, contemporary crafts, local history, toys, early cinema artifacts | |||
| History | website, authentic Victorian period shops, room settings, displays covering 100 years of shopping and social history | ||||
| Hastings | Hastings | Art | Contemporary art gallery, collection of 20th and 21st century British art | ||
| Rother | Railway | Heritage railway, accessed at the Northiam railway station | |||
| Rother | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 18th-century house with literary connections including Henry James, E.F. Benson and Rumer Godden | |||
| Wealden | Railway | Heritage railway and exhibits including model railway at the Isfield railway station | |||
| Lewes | History | 11th century motte and bailey castle, includes Barbican House Museum with archaeology and medieval life displays, and the Town Model of Lewes | |||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Amusement | website, working vintage penny slot machines | ||
| Wealden | Open air | Medieval priory house with furnishings from different periods, historic watermill, rope making museum, replica Iron Age roundhouse and other buildings, art exhibits, gardens | |||
| Lewes | Historic house | ||||
| Lewes | Military | Napoleonic-era fort and Martello tower with area military artefacts and memorabilia, exhibits on local military, World War I and World War II | |||
| Newhaven Museum | Newhaven | Lewes | Multiple | website, local history, maritime artifacts, operated by the Newhaven Historical Society | |
| Wealden | Mill | Early 19th century windmill | |||
| Wealden | Science | website, located at Herstmonceux Castle estate | |||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Law enforcement | History of the Sussex Police, housed in the basement of Brighton Town Hall | ||
| Wealden | Mill | Early 19th century windmill | |||
| Newhaven | Lewes | Natural history | website, includes Planet Earth Museum with dinosaurs, fossils, geology, gardens, planthouses | ||
| Wealden | Local | website, located in the former courthouse, includes prison cells, exercise yard and stocks, displays of local history | |||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Historic house | Early 20th century period Edwardian manor | ||
| Military | Napoleonic-era fort with area military artefacts and memorabilia, includes collections of The Royal Sussex Regiment, Queen's Royal Irish Hussars, vehicles, weapons, uniforms, medals | ||||
| Hove | Brighton and Hove | Local | website, 1820s townhouse with focus on the architecture and social history of Brighton & Hove between the 1780s and 1840s | ||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Historic house | Early 19th century former royal seaside retreat, built in Indo-Saracenic style with lavish decorations and chinoiserie furnishings | ||
| Rye Art Gallery | Rother | Art | website, information | ||
| Rye | Rother | Multiple | Includes the Ypres Tower of the medieval castle, and the East Street Site with local history exhibits | ||
| Rye | Rother | Local | website, local history using sound and light show, working collection of old pier amusement machines | ||
| Lewes | Local | Located in a Martello tower, local history, military, period stores and rooms, household items, model railway, maritime heritage | |||
| Hastings | Hastings | Maritime | website, artifacts from local shipwrecks, rocks and fossils, changes in the coast, coastal defense | ||
| Stanmer Rural Museum | Brighton and Hove | Agriculture | website, rural life artifacts, farm tools and equipment, wagons, reconstructed blacksmith's forge, household items, operated by the Stanmer Preservation Society | ||
| Wealden | Mill | Late 19th century windmill | |||
| Eastbourne | Eastbourne | Art | Contemporary art museum and gallery | ||
| Brighton | Brighton and Hove | Railway | Heritage railway that runs along a length of the seafront of Brighton | ||
| Brighton and Hove | Mill | Early 19th century windmill | |||
| Rother | Local | Local history, maps, models, pictures, seals, local pottery and items of daily life | |||
| Herstmonceux | Wealden | Mill | Early 19th century windmill | ||
Bentley Wildflower and Motor Museum is no longer operating, despite there being a ‘brown sign’ on the main road[4]