Situated in Wilton Park, the elaborate Gothic Revival mansion was converted into a museum by Walter Bagshaw in 1911.

Unusually for a local museum, it has a dedicated Egyptology gallery, including a replica mummy reconstructed from an authentic Egyptian death mask.

The museum is currently owned and operated by Kirklees Council,[1] but owing to local government budget cuts, its future is uncertain.

The museum building was originally a mansion called 'The Woodlands',[2] built by mill owner George Sheard in 1875.

When Sheard died in 1902, no buyer could be found for the elaborate Gothic revival structure—originally costing £25,000 (equivalent to £2,974,835 in 2023)—and so it was acquired by the local authority for a nominal price of £5.

[1] The centrepiece of the Egyptological display is a full size replica mummy, created by curator John Lidster in 1969, using a genuinely historic death mask, bandages and ground coffee.