Set within Wardown Park on the edge of Luton’s town centre, Wardown House Museum and Gallery occupies a substantial Victorian mansion with a history stretching back to the 1870s. The building has had several names over the years – formerly known as Wardown Park Museum and, before that, the Luton Museum and Art Gallery – but its focus has long been on the traditional crafts and local heritage of Bedfordshire. The collection is particularly strong on lace-making and hat-making, with samples of Bedfordshire lace dating back to the 17th century and a collection of around 700 hats and pieces of headwear.
From Private Estate to Public Park
The original property on this site, called Bramingham Shott, was built by Robert How. In the early 1870s, local solicitor Frank Chapman-Scargill took over the estate and rebuilt much of the house in 1879 at a cost of £10,000. After Scargill departed in 1893, lime burner Benjamin John Harfield Forder acquired the property and renamed it Wardown, after War Down – the hill near his family home in Buriton, Hampshire. In 1903, Forder and his partners, Halley Stewart and Sir Malcolm Stewart (who would later acquire the London Brick Company), put the house and its 11-acre park up for sale. Luton Council purchased it in 1904 and spent the following years planting trees, laying footpaths, and building bridges. A bowling green followed in 1905, and the layout of the park today reflects this Edwardian period closely. During the First World War, Wardown House was converted into a hospital, operated first by the Royal Army Medical Corps and then by the Voluntary Aid Detachments of the British Red Cross Society, under the joint command of Mrs Nora Durler and Mrs Mary Green. The Luton Museum formally moved into the building in 1931.
Galleries and Collections
The ground floor houses the Living Landscape gallery, covering local archaeology and natural history. Highlights include the Shillington Roman coin hoard and an Iron Age mirror. The first floor Luton Life displays, refurbished and reopened in February 2003 with partial funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, explore stories of Luton residents over the past 150 years. There is also a gallery dedicated to the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, produced in partnership with the Imperial War Museum, tracing the history of the local regiment.
The Wenlock Jug
Among the most significant objects in the museum’s possession is the Wenlock Jug, a rare surviving English bronze jug from the 15th century and a notable piece for the study of medieval bronze working. In 2005, the jug was nearly sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for £750,000, but an export stop was issued in October of that year by culture minister David Lammy, acting on a recommendation from the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest. Luton Museums Service subsequently purchased the jug, spending 300 times its normal annual acquisitions budget to match the offer and keep it in the town.