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Here at Dorking Museum, we love solving a mystery and we love it when people send mysteries into us. Back in October, Jay Neale contacted us, as he’d found this bottle fragment and asked for our help in identifying it. We thought it may have come from a Butler & Sons bottle. Sam Dawson, one […]

One of our volunteers, Peter Sturge, has been researching the Dorking Chalk pits and lime works for a number of years – and wanted some help identifying this location. Peter took advantage of our jigsaw puzzle project to create a “double puzzle” He wrote “Despite it being described as “The Old Limekiln at Dorking, Surrey”

More news from Abinger from 131 years ago. Thank you once again to Melissa Schaupp for her reporting. Amusing correspondence continued between the Choirmaster and Estate owner Mr. Evelyn. The Choirmaster asks that Mr Evelyn allow the members of the choir under his employment to return to their post after Mr Evelyn purportedly asked them

Nigel Edward Campbell (Ted) Molyneux 29th June 1929 – 24th January 2021 The Dorking Museum and Dorking Local History Group heard with sadness in January of the death from Covid-19 of Ted Molyneux, aged 91 in East Surrey Hospital.  He had been taken ill just before Christmas, although he hadn’t been well for some time. 

2020 has been a very challenging year. Much of what we had planned, including two major exhibitions, a programme of school holiday family activities, and a series of events planned to mark the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, has had to be curtailed or totally cancelled. We were unable to run cave tours

More news from Abinger from 131 years ago. Thank you once again to Melissa Schaupp for her reporting. Unseasonably warm weather. Roses flowering in November. Local artist Frank Walton exhibits three paintings in the London Institute of Painters in Oil Colour. During the Museum’s WW1 War Memorial research, we discovered that Frank’s son Geoffrey was

The Museum website has been getting a well needed ‘spring clean’ during these past few months. Pages that hadn’t been updated for over 10 years have been spruced up with new photographs and updated information. During lockdown we were contacted by a new crop of volunteers who were able to provide the Museum with beautiful

More news from Abinger from 131 years ago. Thank you once again to Melissa Schaupp for her reporting. Details of Abinger Lower and Upper school inspection, there are complaints that infant school children have to ‘learn in a very cold room’. Surrey Union Hunt Foxhounds met at Abinger Hatch on 29 Oct 1889. The hunt

Lois Leyland kept a photographic diary of life in Dorking during the first lockdown. She took photographs of the Mayflower Boat planters that were placed around Dorking during the Summer for the Museums use. She has now produced this beautiful calendar for us – and is donating all proceeds to the Museum. The calendar is