[2][3] The museum, which opened in 1972, owns and displays a collection of artefacts relating to the local area, including banknotes and cheques from the Leominster & Herefordshire Bank, early local postage marks, material from the Leominster and Kington Railway, the Bronze Age Aymestrey burial, and a complete cider mill.
[4] It also has a number of works by the Leominster-born artist John Scarlett Davis, including an 1828 self-portrait,[5] and a book of 173 sketches, purchased for £11,000 at auction at Christie's in March 1979.
[7] for a project called "Rifles and Spades", which commemorated the local effects of World War I.
The project,[8] which finished in April 2015, comprised three Open Days at the museum, three public talks, a commemorative event at Leominster Priory attended by 240 people, an exhibition called 'Our Story' which was in Leominster Library for two months before touring various village and school locations,[9] and finally a linked set of education packs that are available to schools.
[12] The museum building, on Etnam Street, was originally built in 1855 as a mission hall for workers constructing the local railways.