Museum of East Anglian Life

Museum of East Anglian Life

With 17 historic buildings set in 75 acres of beautiful countryside, the Museum of East Anglian Life is the largest independent museum in Suffolk. The museum is an educational charity supporting the community. The museum cares for over 40,000 objects – once the everyday items of East Anglian life. Their collection has a particular focus on the production of food and social history relating to it, reflective of the region’s strong agricultural character.

The Museum of East Anglia life aims to enrich people’s lives, encouraging enjoyment, learning and participation through their public programme, training and volunteering schemes. They hold events throughout the year, family activities during the holidays and a programme for schools and community-focused initiatives. They are a space for people to be active, learn new things, look at the world differently, make friends and give something back.

The Museum of East Anglian Life is a 75-acre open air site, once home to the Abbot’s Hall estate, which was given over to the museum in a series of stages from 1967 and is now held in trust by the museum. It now incorporates several local buildings including a water mill, blacksmith’s forge, workers cottages and a heritage farm.

As the biggest venue in the area the museum also hosts weddings and a series of regular community events such as a beer festival, bonfire night, blues festival and cider festival. With bonfire night attracting 5,000 visitors alone, and the removal of an existing shop till system, it became essential for the museum to be able to run and manage the shop and provide a more efficient entry system which could cope with memberships and Gift Aid donations.

Download Case Study

Enter your details to download the case study.