Earls Colne Heritage Museum

The Earls Colne Heritage Museum occupies the former water tower of the Atlas Works, an iron agricultural machinery foundry that shaped the village in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Across a few floors the permanent exhibition walks through the village story from earliest times, through the Domesday Book, Colne Priory and the Earls of Oxford, a 1598 map, the diary of the Reverend Ralph Josselin, the Victorian era and the Hunt family, up to the Second World War. Special exhibitions are staged through the year, and the museum runs walks, talks and school visits. It suits families with older children who enjoy local history, industrial heritage and seeing real artefacts, and it is a short visit that pairs well with a walk along the Colne valley. Opening is limited to a few afternoons a week, so check before setting out.