The Museum is a thatched building prominently located in the centre of the town in Market Place. The Museum houses a valuable collection of archival photographs and legacies from Sturminster’s once thriving cattle market, cheese making industry and railway, now all gone. The Museum also has items relating to the cottage industries of button and glove making and other past trades in the town. The Museum has inherited a large number of items related to the Dorset dialect poet Robert Young, who was both a contemporary and friend of William Barnes and Thomas Hardy. We have a census record data base available for perusal by those researching their early family history in the town.