Tom Brown's School Museum: On display

On display

Like many English villages, Uffington and its neighbourhood still have many visible landmarks showing their history. Uffington has the added advantage of associations with people and places which are renowned internationally.

Many visitors come to see the Museum building itself, which was Uffington's first school.

Founded by Thomas Saunders in 1617, the school was significant for being one of the earliest secular schools. It was founded for local boys: the original charter is displayed in the Museum. Tuition for girls came later, and was provided separately until the National School was built in the late 19th century.

The White Horse and White Horse Hill

The recent excavations of Uffington's famous White Horse and the Iron Age hillfort called Uffington Castle are illustrated with photographs and maps.

Some of the artefacts discovered are now on display in the Museum, and we are very grateful to Oxford Archaeology and the Oxfordshire Museum Service for their loan. The excavation finds include three Bronze Age worked flints, one of which is a scraper and some pottery fragments from a similar time.

From the Early Iron Age come some beautifully decorated sherds of All Cannings Cross pottery and some slightly later undecorated sherds. There are also some stone slingshots, a chalk loomweight with the groove marks clearly showing, and a finely polished piece of worked dark bone.

From the Roman period there are two coins, fragments of a bracelet and a brooch and some pottery. We also have a worked antler point, found by Professor Stephen Piggott as a boy and part of a male skull, thought to be 2000 years old, found at the bottom of the Hill in 1980.

The strangest find of all is an 1831 copy of Sir Walter Scott's book Demonology and Witchcraft, perhaps buried as a joke when the round barrow was excavated in 1856. Most of the finds have lain buried for over 2000 years.

Uffington's famous authors

The museum has exhibits celebrating two of Uffington's more famous past residents, the author Thomas Hughes and the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman.

Hughes was born in Uffington in 1822. Our display describes Hughes' early life, his later interest in Christian Socialism, and his efforts to establish a colony in Rugby, Tennessee, where his ideas could be put into practice.

We also explain the connections between Hughes' famous book 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' and Uffington.

Hughes' book 'The Scouring of the White Horse' is an important record of the celebrations that accompanied the renovation of the Horse in 1857. One of the first editions of the book is on display in the Museum.

There is more about Hughes in the Thomas Hughes section of this site, and in the Museum itself.

Sir John Betjeman and his wife Penelope rented a farm in Uffington in 1934, and lived in the village until 1945, apart from two years when he served as Press Attache to the British High Commissioner in Ireland. Their son Paul was born in the village.

Betjeman wrote much poetry and published his second book while living in Uffington, but the family also took an active part in village life.

There is more about John Betjeman in the Uffington section of this site, and of course in the Museum.

Village history

Each year the Museum has a new display in the mezzanine gallery, which features an aspect of Uffington's history, drawing on the memories and experiences of local people.
For 2010 the gallery illustrates Uffington's new Parish Trail, highlighting the village's history, natural history, and places of interest.

The Museum has a library of sound recordings of the memories of the older village residents and videos of village events. All of these are available via our visitor computer, where users can also search our complete collection indexes. We have postcards and books for sale, together with a number of pamphlets published by the Museum which give detailed information on Uffington and its history.

We aim to record, conserve and display as much material as possible illustrating the past of this fascinating part of Britain, and to preserve the present for the future.

We look forward to welcoming you!