Exhibitions
Shire Hall Museum
‘What makes Monmouth, Monmouth?’ Dynamic Collections: Opening the Box, 2023 – 2025

This exhibition is part of our project, ‘Dynamic Collections: Opening the Box’, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is on display at Monmouth Shire Hall until 31 May 2025. For this exhibition, we invited different local communities to ‘open the box’ to our collection and discover new points of view. Each person chose an object they think tells the story of Monmouth for them. Alongside their chosen objects you can also explore their personal stories. The exhibition includes many objects, photographs and paintings that have never been displayed before.
The Museum would like to thank the National Lottery Heritage Fund, donors to the museums, and our volunteers for making this project and exhibition possible.
The exhibition is open daily from 11 am to 4pm except for Wednesdays and Sundays (open Sundays during school summer holidays). Admission is free. There are free activities for children of all ages.
50 Years of Friendship: new exhibition by Monmouth Twinning Association at Shire Hall celebrates the 50th anniversary of Monmouth twinning with Carbonne, France. This was done in
partnership with the Shire Hall Museum as part of the Dynamic Collections: Opening the box project, funded by the National Lottery
Heritage Fund.
The exhibition is open daily from 11 am to 4pm Mondays, Tuesdays Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays. Admission is free.
Archive
Exhibition: Understanding Collections, Uncovering Stories, Behind the Scenes at MonLife Museums 2019-2025
This exhibition, on display until May 14th, 2024, showcases the work completed during MonLife Heritage’s recent Collections Review project. The exhibition shows the work that took place behind the scenes in our museums between 2020 and 2022.
‘Understanding Collections, Uncovering Stories’ also features objects that celebrates the 100 years since the donation of the Nelson collection to the town of Monmouth, and the 300 years since the building of Shire Hall.
The exhibition includes photographs and objects from the collection, including some that have never been publicly displayed. The museum would like to thank the National Lottery Heritage Fund, donors to the museums, and our volunteers for making this project and exhibition possible.
The exhibition will run at Monmouth Shire Hall until May 14th 2024, and is open daily from 11 am to 4pm except for Wednesdays and Sundays. Admission is free. There are free activities for children of all ages.
Exhibition: “Understanding Collections, Uncovering Stories”

This exhibition, on display until December 17th, 2023, showcases the work completed during MonLife Heritage’s recent Collections Review project. The exhibition shows the work that took place behind the scenes in our museums between 2020 and 2022.
‘Understanding Collections, Uncovering Stories’ also features objects that tell the stories of four local characters from Abergavenny, whose stories sparked the interest of collections staff during the project. They are : Ivy Wall, Walter Jones, John Owen Y Fenni, and Ivor Morgan. The exhibition tells their stories through some of the things they owned, used, or made. It also tells part of the story of Abergavenny Museum itself, from its first years in the 1950 to the present day. The exhibition has photographs and a collection of objects that have been displayed in the past, as well as objects that have never been exhibited. The museum would like to thank the National Lottery Heritage Fund, donors to the museums and our volunteers for making this project and exhibition possible.
This post is also available in: Welsh