Seaford Museum - The Museum

The Museum

Seaford Museum is housed in Martello Tower number 74 and is situated on the Esplanade in Seaford, East Sussex. The Tower is the most westerly of a line of defensive fortifications built along the Kent and Sussex coast during the Napoleonic Wars. The Tower is a round two-storey structure surrounded by a dry, brick-lined moat. It was constructed between 1806 and 1810.

The War Department sold it in 1880. During the next 90 years it passed through a number of hands and was used for various commercial purposes. During the 1930s the moat floor was used as a roller skating rink while the tower was used as a cafeteria.

In 1976 the Tower was acquired by Lewes District Council and the Museum was installed there in 1979. The Museum has 5,000 square feet (500 m2) of floorspace (including a covered section of the moat) which is used for displays, a visitor centre, an archive and a museum shop. Between October and Easter it is open on Sundays and Bank Holidays only. During the rest of the year it is additionally open on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Public access to the document archive is available, on a supervised basis, once per month.

The museum is run as a registered charity by the Seaford Museum and Historic Society and has a large and eclectic collection of artifacts including large collections of maritime and domestic items.