New Forest Heritage Centre

We are a charity which runs the New Forest Heritage Centre in Lyndhurst. The building consists of an archive, reference library, museum, shop and cafe. We have a small paid team but most of our work is undertaken by a band of enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers who help, either upstairs in the archive and library or, downstairs in the museum.

In the Christopher Tower Reference Library we have a very comprehensive collection of books and other printed material on every aspect of life in the Forest, a fantastic collection of maps and images and a number of private collections which have been donated by local historians. Some of our archive material dates back to the 17th century but most of our collection focusses on 19th and 20th century.
The museum, shop and cafe are open every day and entry is FREE. The library and archive are available to anyone who books an appointment and we open our local studies room to the public on Thursdays 10 – 4.