Museum Collections

Across Tudor House & Garden, SeaCity Museum and Southampton City Art Gallery, we’ve been collecting Southampton stories for more than a century, and our collections represent a rich and diverse selection of material, including Maritime & Local History, Archaeology, Archives and Fine Art. The collections are continually growing to reflect Southampton’s whole community and newly discovered stories.

Southampton’s museum collections are looked after by the Southampton Cultural Services Team, run by Southampton City Council. The team are always busy in the background preserving Southampton’s rich history, whether it’s cleaning, researching, documenting or preparing objects for display.

As well as displaying these important collections and stories in Southampton’s museums, they are also looked after and preserved digitally online for people to explore further. Visit Southampton Stories online to discover our incredible collections and stories anytime and see what the team have been up to. The Southampton Stories website was created as part of an Arts Council England (ACE) funded project to make the collections of Southampton City Council more accessible and relevant to our city and the people who live here.

Southampton City Art Gallery also holds one of the finest collections of art in the south of England and has been awarded ‘Designated’ status, by Arts Council England. This collection currently holds over 5,000 works, spanning eight centuries. A large number of these can be viewed for FREE in the main hall and various exhibitions at the gallery. Discover some of this significant fine art collection here.