'Welcome to the Collections Centre' - City Day Tour

We are incredibly excited to be launching the new 'Southend Museums Collections Centre', with a series of free tours as part of this year's Southend City Day.

Southend Museums Collections Centre (SMCC) will officially open to the public for the first time on March 7th 2026. Located on the 2nd floor of the Beecroft Art Gallery building, SMCC offers the community special, previously impossible access to the entire archaeology and social history collections, and a behind-the-scenes look into museum curation, conservation and research work.

This exciting move from an offsite, inaccessible store to an in-house collections centre has been an opportunity to reorganize and redesign the way the collections are stored while improving accessibility for staff and visitors. Tens of thousands of objects making up the archaeological, natural history, and material culture collections have been moved to their new homes at SMCC – including a vast assortment of EKCO radios, artefacts from the Roman 'Wickford Well' excavation site, original stone from Prittlewell Priory, the full London shipwreck assemblage and more.

Southend Museums Collections Centre is opening to the public on March 7th in time for Southend’s second, annual City Day. This is a chance to get a glimpse at the important, everyday work being done behind the scenes by conservators and curators. Southend Museums Collections Centre will also provide the community with the unique opportunity to experience much more of their own history up close in a way that has never been possible – until now.

Tours of SMCC will be free March 7th as part of Southend City Day, and regular tours and events will be a part of the ongoing museum offer going forward.

Tours last for approximately one hour, and will commence from the new SMCC reception area on the 2nd floor of the Beecroft Art Gallery.

Tickets are free, but prebooking is essential for the city day tours as they will book up very quickly.

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