Hitchin Museum and Art Gallery

The Hitchin Museum and Art Gallery was a local history museum in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England, with an extensive collection that told the story of the town’s social history and of the rural industries that contributed to its prosperity.

The Library, run by Hertfordshire County Council since the late 1960s, is now in an extension next door.

Although it found that visitors greatly valued all aspects of the service (Hitchin Museum and Art Gallery, Letchworth Museum & Art Gallery, the Education Service with its School Loans scheme, the Archaeology and the Natural History Services), the two museums were both described as unfit for purpose and the Museums Resource Centre at Burymead Road in Hitchin as outdated and inefficient.

[3] The review had five main recommendations, one of which was to close the two existing museums at Letchworth and at Hitchin, and instead run a museum and gallery on a single town-centre site.

A feasibility study was commissioned to investigate the possibility of converting Hitchin Town Hall to museum use.