History of Science Museum

The museum is situated in the world's first, purpose built museum building - the Old Ashmolean Building. The museum houses an unrivalled collection of historic scientific instruments, including astrolabes, sundials, quadrants, early mathematical instruments (used for surveying, drawing, calculating, astronomy and navigation) and optical instruments (including microscopes, telescopes and cameras). 

The museum also possesses a reference library for the study of the history of scientific instruments that includes manuscripts, incunabula, prints, printed ephemera and early photographic material. (Pictures reproduced with kind permission of the History of Science Museum).

Astrolabe

Bate Collection of Musical Instruments

Oxford Museum

The Oxford Museum is part of the Town Hall and is accessible by a small flight of steps on the corner of Blue Boar Street. The Museum concentrates on the history of Oxford, with particular reference to the evolution of the town rather than the University. There are detailed information boards and exhibits include models of the Saxon and Norman town, archaeological findings, a copy of the 12th century charter and relics from the Civil War including the famous painting "The Siege of Oxford". 

The Oxford Story

A tour of this innovative museum begins with a video presentation on life in the present day University. The visitor is then strapped into an old fashioned desk and is transported back through time to the thirteenth century to experience the sounds and smells of Oxford at the time of the University's foundation. Information is conveyed by headphones, and the script is available in a variety of languages. Various alumni, such as the scientists Hooke and Boyle, the astronomer Edmund Halley and the architect Christopher Wren, are discussed individually. There is also information on modern writers and politicians, from all round the world, who have studied at Oxford and left their mark on history.

University & Pitt Rivers Museum

The University Museum was founded in 1855 to commemorate the development of scientific learning at Oxford University. The exhibition concentrates on biology and evolution of the species. On the ground floor there are skeletons of various dinosaurs and other animals. Rows of display cases contain fossils, stones and other minerals whilst the busts of eminent scientists of the last century line the walls. There is a painting of a Dodo by John Savery, which allegedly inspired a character in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". Towards the back of the University Museum, you come to the Pitt Rivers Museum of Ethnology. Founded in 1885, this area houses the amazing collection of Lieutenant-General A Pitt-Rivers, who collected artifacts from cultures all over the world. Shrunken heads, Egyptian mummies, totem poles and fertility dolls are all to be found in the exhibition.