Double jubilee

Its double jubilee commemorates 1958, when the mayor started the whole thing off by putting out an appeal for interesting artefacts, and 1983, when the museum moved to its present home in Church Street, close to the market place.

In between it had wandered round the town, as Tony Hadland, its energetic administrator, explained: "When it outgrew the UDC's kitchen it went into the Victoria Cross Gallery and then into the Civic Hall.

"In 1983, it opened here as the Vale and Downland Museum, aiming to cover social and economic history everywhere between the Thames and the Ridgeway, and to provide a social, cultural and educational centre for the area."

The building which faces the street (part of a much larger complex behind) is 16th-century, originally half-timbered and later skinned with brick. It was a weaver's cottage, then the home of a cloth merchant, and from the 19th century until the 1970s, a doctor's surgery.

"We have a photo from the 1930s of the doctors sitting outside, around the well, having a fag!" said Tony.

This outside', and the well - safely sealed off from young would-be potholers by a glass top - are now inside the museum, forming part of its busy café in a 1970s extension. This looks over a courtyard and herb garden and the 18th-century Hunt's Barn, donated by a descendant of Thomas More and brought from Hendred to its present site as an Ikea-style flat-pack.

The two anniversaries are being used as a focus for fundraising. £50,000 is needed for refurbishments already carried out, mainly repairs to terrible leaks.

"We also need to build up a capital reserve," said Tony, "because at the moment we live ridiculously hand-to-mouth."

Much of the museum's income derives from the hiring out of Lains Barn (near Wantage and often used for weddings and ceilidhs), supplemented by admission charges to the main gallery, and bookshop and café profits.

It also receives financial help from the Vale of White Horse District Council and Wantage Town Council.

All its paid staff are now part-time, and, like so many other small museums, volunteers are crucial to its running and development.

"We have about 90 of them," said Tony. "Many are local historians; some look after the gardens; some do our VAT returns; and we have an ex-Bodleian librarian who runs our research library, and a photo archivist who scans and indexes our photographs."

The range of the museum's involvement in community activities is astonishing. There must be few residents of the town or nearby countryside who have never passed through its doors, whether to buy or sell at the weekly country market, take part in one of the health walks, pick up a leaflet from the Visitor Information shelves or book a ticket for a charity function or the Wantage Summer Festival - the museum provides this facility free for such events.

Participation in the arts is another strength. The museum provides gallery space for artists and community groups, with meet the artist' Rural Arts Workshops, music and theatre performances, and an annual film-making school for teenagers.

It is often a base for specific projects, such as the restoration of Letcombe Brook - the chalk stream running through the town - and local history initiatives like Beating the Bounds': an opportunity for people to investigate the origins of parish boundaries.

The traditional exhibits you expect to find form a series of chronological displays, entitled Fossils to Formula One', in the main gallery and Hunt's Barn. Many of them are excitingly interactive, and all benefit from up-to-the-minute technology paid for with millennium money.

Two films narrated by David Attenborough introduce the history of the area - a history shaped by an unusual landscape.

"Originally this was the bottom of a tropical sea" explained Tony, "but it tilted so that even within a couple of miles you get different geological strata and so, different land uses."

Abundant sources of water led to a flourishing textile industry - the naval hammocks on display were one profitable product. Wantage also had many tanneries, from the Reformation right up to the Napoleonic Wars. The cloth and tanning workshops are two of several reconstructions in the museum.

Visitors can also see a farmhouse kitchen with a wonderful assortment of utensils, a typical cheap American clock of the period (1890s) made by the Ansonia Patent Brass and Copper Company, and a mystery object consisting of two strips of wood horizontally suspended from a leather strap.

There is a section on Black Wantage' - an ignominious era in the town's history when crime, disease and pollution are said to have been rife, leading to the introduction of street lighting, drains and a police force.

Other highlights include a wonderfully noisy tram ride' and, of course, Damon Hill's world championship F1 car, on loan from Williams in Grove.

Both of these will appeal to children, who are particularly well served - they have their own attractive work area up in the eves.

They will also like the skeleton - a young Saxon lady who died falling out of a tree (raising the question of why she was in a tree to start with) - and the replica of the Alfred Jewel held in the Ashmolean, since many will know that the famously Incendiary king of 1066 and All That was actually born in Wantage.

There is far more to these permanent displays than there is space to write about them, and there are always, as well, temporary exhibitions on topics of local interest. Coming up next is a collection relating to road transport in the 20th century, focusing on its social context. Other plans include the reinstatement of a monthly archaeological finds surgery.

Meanwhile, the Jubilee Appeal welcomes donations, so that this really lively and imaginative community asset can continue to develop.

Vale and Downland Museum, Church Street, Wantage OX12 8BL. 01235 771447.

Main galleries open 11am-4pm, Mon to Sat (not bank holidays). Café and temporary exhibitions open 10am-4pm. Tickets (one year's entry) adults £2.50, young people aged 4-25 in full-time education £1, concessions £2, family £7.