Elias Ashmole and the Tradescants

At that point, the collection was already 50 years old, having been founded by John Tradescant who had brought together man-made and natural objects and curiosities from every corner of the world.

John, and later his son, displayed them to the public for a fee at their house in Lambeth, which was known as ‘The Ark’.

When it passed to Elias Ashmole (pictured) by deed of gift, he added it to his own substantial collection before giving both to the university as a scientific resource.

The result was that the Ashmolean threw open its doors in Broad Street, Oxford under the watchful eye of its first curator Dr Robert Plot.

Apart from the collection, the museum also housed a lecture theatre and a number of laboratories for carrying out experiments.

It seems the fact that it was open to the public did not go down well with everyone.

Records show that one German visitor in 1710 was most displeased to note that “ordinary folk” were allowed into the museum.

He wrote “the people impetuously handle everything . . . even the women are allowed up here for sixpence; they run here and there, grabbing at everything.”

During the 18th century, the most notable additions to the collection included the Alfred Jewel and materials collected on Captain Cook’s Pacific voyage of 1772-5.

In those days there was no technology to help preserve specimens from the ravages of time and much of the Tradescants’ original collection, especially animal skins, fell into decay.

Around the middle of the century, the university decided to establish a new natural science museum — now Oxford’s Museum of Natural History.

Because all the natural history specimens from the Ashmolean were transferred to the new institution, much of its original and therefore essentially scientific content was lost.

Fortunately, the Ashmolean carved out a major new role for itself in the emerging field of archaeology, spurred on by its latest custodian Arthur Evans who managed to secure a huge number of new acquisitions.

In fact, Evans was so successful in his treasure hunting that the original Ashmolean building was simply not big enough to contain the sheer volume of objects.

Evans managed to persuade the university to splash out on new premises and, in 1845, it built onto the rear of the University Galleries, a grand neo-classical structure in Beaumont Street which housed the university’s art collections.

Fourteen years after everything had been transferred across to the new premises, the two collections were merged and the institution known as the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology we know today was born.

These days, the Ashmolean holds around half-a-million objects and is feted around the world for its unrivalled collection of art and antiquities from Europe, Asia and the Far East.

Among these are the most important Egyptian pre-Dynastic material outside Cairo, and a fine array of Anglo-Saxon treasures.

It also has an impressive collection of fine art, including majolica pottery, the most significant modern Chinese art collection in the west and the finest collection of Raphael drawings in the world.

This year it moves into a new phase of its history with a new building, designed by Rick Mather Architects to take it into the 21st century. With five floors instead of three and twice the amount of display space, the museum is able to bring out hundreds of items from the storerooms it was previously unable to display through lack of space.

There will be 39 new galleries including four temporary exhibition areas and a new education centre, conservation studios and a roof-top restaurant.

More than 400 bespoke glass display cases with state-of-the-art environmental controls have been installed, allowing even the most rare and fragile items to be put on view.

At the heart of the new building is a transformation of the way in which the Ashmolean will display its treasures.

The new approach, called ‘Crossing Cultures, Crossing Time’, presents the collections of art and archaeology in themed galleries and encourages visitors to think about objects in cross-cultural and historical contexts.

Fittingly, the world’s first public museum will be more centred around the public than ever before with user-friendly, interactive displays and activities that bring the collection to life with colour and imagination.

Visitors will be invited to handle an Anglo-Saxon brooch or a Roman oil lamp, take part in an art workshop and even sip tea in a Japanese tea house.

Makes you wonder what Elias Ashmole and the Tradescants would make of it all.