culture
Museum of Croydon's New Exhibition Takes 18 Months to Create
A small team spent 18 months shaping the Museum of Croydon's new show from scattered objects and local memories into a single narrative.
How we reported this
The Museum of Croydon on Katharine Street will open its new exhibition Hidden Layers on 20 July, built around 87 objects collected and arranged by a five-person team drawn from the borough.
Cultural sites across Croydon have faced rising costs for storage and insurance since 2024, pushing smaller venues to pool resources and staff time rather than mount separate displays. The current project started when the museum's permanent collection needed rotation after the 2025 refurbishment of its ground-floor galleries.
Local makers and their routes into the show
Two of the curators work from a studio above a former printworks on London Road in Broad Green, where they sorted donations gathered from households in Thornton Heath and South Norwood. The remaining three contributors come from the Croydon Arts Collective, which runs monthly sessions at Fairfield Halls. Their combined notes record 214 visits to private homes and community centres between January 2025 and March 2026 to select items that had not previously been catalogued.
Visitor figures from the museum's 2024 photography display reached 12,450 over ten weeks, with 38 percent of tickets bought by people living within three miles of Katharine Street. Adult entry for Hidden Layers is set at £9, with free admission for under-18s on Wednesdays. The display will run until 12 October.
Next steps for visitors
Advance booking opens on the museum website from 13 July. Guided tours led by two of the original team members start at 11 a.m. on Saturdays and cost an extra £4. The same group will hold a drop-in session at the Clocktower on 27 July to answer questions about how individual pieces were chosen and mounted.