About Us

Chatteris Museum is a small local museum concentrating on the town of Chatteris and the surrounding Fenland area.

The Chatteris museum collection was first started in 1942 as a result of an interest in local history by Mr Charles Dobb, then clerk to the council. Initially his little collection was housed in a small glass cabinet in the old Urban District Council offices in Grove House, but the collection continued to grow.

In 1963 a complete room full of display cabinets was officially opened as Chatteris Museum. Eventually the museum took over the middle floor of Grove House and before long there were enough exhibits to fill 4 rooms.

In 1995 the museum moved to its present location into what had been the doctors’ surgery in Church Lane and it shares the building with Chatteris Town Council.

The Museum is owned and managed by a team of Trustees on behalf of all Chatteris residents.

It is run on a day-to-day basis by a dedicated team of volunteer helpers under the leadership of the curator, Jenny Furlong.

At the museum you can discover the ancient town of Chatteris from the earliest prehistoric settlement to more recent times.

With an extensive collection of artefacts, documents, maps and photographs, the museum welcomes all visitors including those wanting to carry out their own research.

If groups wish to visit the Museum outside our normal opening times please contact us to make special arrangements.

The museum is also frequently visited by local schools and, if the pupils are studying a particular period in history, we will do our best to put out additional relevant displays.

We also have loans boxes that are available for schools and reminiscence groups to borrow. These contain items, old and new that can be handled together with photographs and text relating to the various subjects. The boxes include ‘Fenland Farming’, ‘Toys Old and New, Geology’, ‘World War Two’, ‘Schools Through The Ages’ and ‘How We Used To Live in The Victorian Period’.