Dorchester Abbey Museum
Encyclopedia
Dorchester, Oxfordshire
Dorchester-on-Thames is a village and civil parish on the River Thame in Oxfordshire, about northwest of Wallingford and southeast of Oxford. Despite its name, Dorchester is not on the River Thames, but just above the Thame's confluence with it...
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is attached to Dorchester Abbey
Dorchester Abbey
Dorchester Abbey is a Church of England parish church in Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire, about southeast of Oxford. It was formerly a Norman abbey church and was built on the site of a Saxon cathedral.-History:...
.
The museum occupies two buildings on the site of Dorchester Abbey. The Old Schoolroom, part of the former 14th-century guest house of the abbey, has displays of artefacts, illustrations and maps concerning the history of Dorchester and its surroundings. The area has been inhabited for over 6,000 years. It also houses a historical archive. The Cloister Gallery is a new gallery on the northern wall of the Abbey, built in 2001. It displays a permanent exhibition "If Stones Could Speak …", presenting the Abbey using its collection of carved and moulded medieval stonework.
The museum was short-listed for the 2006 Gulbenkian Prize
Gulbenkian Prize
The Art Fund Prize, formerly known as the Gulbenkian Prize, is an annual prize awarded to a museum or gallery in the United Kingdom for a "track record of imagination, innovation and excellence"...
for the Cloister Gallery.