It opened in 1970, in a converted 16th century listed building, with collections of exhibits about local history and displays related to the lives of notable local residents.

[1] The museum is housed in a 16th-century thatched building which was originally four cottages.

John Stringfellow and another local man William Samuel Henson achieved the first powered flight, in 1848, in a disused lace factory, with a 10-foot (3 m), steam-driven flying machine.

[8][9] James Gillingham pioneered the development of articulated artificial limbs,[10] after working as a shoemaker in the town and seeing a man who had his arm so badly shattered in an accidental explosion of a cannon that it had to be amputated to the shoulder socket.

[13] Margaret Bondfield, who was an English Labour politician and feminist, the first woman Cabinet minister in the United Kingdom and a member of the Congregational Church.