museum, event
Studio Weave, 1730
Vestry Road, E17 9NH
Join architects Studio Weave and the Waltham Forest Culture team to go behind the scenes at the museum. The Grade II-listed building was constructed in 1730 to house the parish workhouse. After a variety of other uses it opened as Walthamstow Museum in 1931. The museum is currently closed for transformation into a fully accessible and inclusive museum, join a tour to hear about the plans.
Walthamstow Central
Walthamstow Queens Road, Walthamstow Central
W12, W16, 212, 97
The ground floor of the museum is accessible to wheelchairs.
No museum collections will be onsite as we have moved everything into storage to prepare for the capital project.
Situated in the historic Church End area of central Walthamstow, Vestry House is a relic of an early form of local government in England. Meeting originally in the parish church, local ratepayers – the Vestry – administered basic social provision, including care of the poor. A 1722 Act of Parliament authorised the construction of workhouses and in 1729 the Walthamstow Vestry bought an acre of land for the purpose. The original building was a simple eight-roomed brick house, with a room set aside for Vestry meetings. An inscribed stone over the door reads: 'This house erected An. Dom. MDCCXXX, if any would not work neither should he eat.'
The building was extended several times in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. A Watch House was added to the left of the house in 1765 and demolished in 1912. Following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the West Ham Union Workhouse opened at Leytonstone in 1840. The Walthamstow paupers were moved there, leaving Vestry House to be used purely for local government and to house Walthamstow's first Metropolitan Police Station from 1840-70.
The 1872 Public Health Act separated off the secular functions of parishes and from 1873-76 the Vestry served the local Board for the Urban Sanitary District of Walthamstow. The adoption in 1876 of the enlarged public hall in Orford Road as Walthamstow's first Town Hall finally ended the Vestry's association with the local government.
After periods - as the armoury of the Walthamstow Volunteers - and as the HQ of the Walthamstow Literary and Scientific Institute - and a private house, it became, in 1930, a museum of local history. The museum closed in 1939 due to the war and reopened again in 1950.
Since the 1980s, the museum has also been the home of the borough’s Archives and Local Studies Library Search Room, open by appointment for research on local, family and house history.
The museum collections cover an eclectic range of objects from archaeology to social and industrial history, prints, drawings and paintings, decorative art and over 70,000 photographs. It is also home to the UK’s first petrol combustion engine car, built by Frederick Bremer in his shed in 1892.
The museum galleries and garden are currently closed in preparation for the capital project which will create a fully accessible, inclusive and environmentally sustainable museum with new spaces for a café, events, learning and community programmes as well as new workspaces for local creatives.
For Open House Festival join architects Studio Weave and the Waltham Forest Culture team to hear about the revitalisation project and go behind the scenes at the museum.
