Museums

Kingston Museum

Kingston's Saxon coronations and its own Eadweard Muybridge, the man who made photographs move, free, in a Carnegie building of 1904.

Free

Kingston was where the Saxon kings were crowned, seven of them in the tenth century by the record, Athelstan first in 925, and the stone that tradition says they sat on stands outside the Guildhall; the museum's first gallery tells that story from the borough's prehistory onwards. Its second follows the market town from the Middle Ages to the 1940s. The third is Eadweard Muybridge, born Edward Muggeridge in the town in 1830, who went to California and in 1878 photographed a galloping horse with a bank of cameras to settle whether all four feet left the ground, then built the zoopraxiscope to project the pictures in sequence and became the first man to make a photograph move. He left his collection to Kingston, and the projector is here. The building was paid for by Andrew Carnegie in 1904 and shares its door with the library; a stairwell gallery shows the Martinware pottery and a rolling collection of local views. Entry is free.

Where

Wheatfield Way, Norbiton, KT1 2PS

Nearest station

Kingston · 5 min walk

Hours

NearbyMuseums

• Hampton Court Palace35 min walk
• Landmark Arts Centre35 min walk
• Dorich House46 min walk

NearbyOther Categories

• Kingston Ancient MarketFood Markets5 min walk
• The Coronation StoneMonuments & Ruins6 min walk
• GoBoat KingstonWhat’s On7 min walk

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