Ventnor Heritage Centre

"To Collect, Record and preserve the rich heritage and history of Ventnor and surrounding villages, and share it with local and wider communities"

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Ventnor Heritage Museum

The Museum interior

The Ventnor Heritage Museum carries visitors back in time to explore Ventnor’s origins and the way it grew at phenomenal speed to become a premier Victorian resort town.

For opening times please see Ventnor Heritage Centre home page.

Exhibitions and displays

Our many display boards tell this story in words and pictures. There are finely detailed images from glass plate negatives that offer glimpses into vanished lives. There are reproductions of paintings from visiting artists of the time, fascinated as they were with the dramatic coastal scenery of Ventnor and the Undercliff and the people who came to visit. Other displays document the life-worlds of outlying villages in the earlier 20th Century, a time when horizons were limited and the pace of existence altogether different from today.

Visitors will also see showcases of artefacts that recover lost material worlds. There are even models of the town’s vanished railway lines. We play several DVDs that offer voyages back in time. Finally, you can absorb our Victorian kitchen and laundry exhibits, telling of an age when household chores took on a scale that is difficult for many to appreciate today.

Exhibitions, stories, images . . .

Oh Day of Days! New Book and Exhibition

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in June 1944, we are launching a booklet and exhibition highlighting Ventnor’s (and the Isle of Wight’s) role in the invasion and the experiences of local people. The Isle of Wight was closer to the Normandy beaches than any other part of Britain, and the Ventnor district hosted vital facilities such as the RAF radar station, a Royal Navy wireless interception station and the main radio station used for communication between the high command and the invasion forces.  The exhibition will be available from 5 June 2024, and features the logbook (supervisors’ diary) from RAF Ventnor covering 17 May to 12 June 1944, currently on loan to the Ventnor Heritage Centre. The new booklet, “Oh Day of Days!”  is available in the Heritage Centre, price £4.50, and our online shop, price £6.50 (including postage and packing).

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