Much Wenlock Museum

Much Wenlock is a beautiful old market town in Shropshire and the museum building is categorised as a historic and sensitive site. Vertigo were asked to design, produce and install interpretative displays as part of a £1.4 million project.

The new museum tells the story of the town and surrounding area including the links to the Modern Olympics; Baron Pierre de Coubertin visited the games in 1890 and they are widely seen as the model that he used when he started the modern Olympic movement a couple of years later. Displays include two racing penny-farthing cyclists and an ‘Olympian Tower’ where visitors can hear stories of daring do from some of the athletes who competed. Also explored are some of the paleological treasures from the county as well as the geology of Wenlock Edge. The artefact collection was the driving force behind the museum re-development, so a good understanding of the objects and how they would fit into the stories was essential. In 2016, Mark Rowe of the Independent newspaper reviewed the museum with: “… one of the world’s great little museums.”