Norton Collection Museum

Norton Collection Museum

The Norton Collection is a treasure trove of nostalgia, amassed over decades by one man; Dennis Norton. The museum showcases thousands of items that illustrate in loving detail how people lived in times past.

Permanent displays exploring local history are exhibited at this local museum, which has also created a street scene of Victorian and Edwardian shops to walk through. On the downstairs level are a musical instrument shop, a cycle shop, and an outfitter's shop.

Among the recreated shop displays upstairs are a hairdressers, a ladies wear shop, a wireless shop, a photographic shop, a gramophone shop, and a toy shop. All the recreated shops harken back to real businesses that thrived in Bromsgrove at various times in its history.

The museum is housed in an old coach house located next to Davenal House, an 18th-century listed building. Outside the museum building are transport-related displays, including a special display on Garrington's factory, a large local employer.

Motorcycles

The Norton Collection isn't, despite the name, focussed on Norton Cycles, but the museum does showcase two historic Banshee cycles, produced locally in the 1920s with an unusual sleeve valve engine.

The Bromsgrove Guild

The Bromsgrove Guild was established in 1898 by Walter Gilbert, a sculptor and headmaster of the Bromsgrove School of Art. The Guild drew on the expertise of craftsmen and women from across Europe to create decorative objects in stone, glass, bronze, and plaster.

Their work could be found in churches, high-society houses, and passenger liners. The Guild famously created the Liverbirds that adorn the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, and the ornamental gates to Buckingham Palace in London.

The museum holds a number of Guild items and these are the planed centrepiece of a new display space.