Suffolk Regiment Museum
About this Business
The Suffolk Regiment Museum was established for the 250th Anniversary of the Regiment in 1935. The first acquisitions were items which belonged to even older collections of badges, medals and uniform items which had been displayed in the Officers’ Mess since before The Great War. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s the Museum was a working museum in which Suffolk Regiment recruits would go to learn the history of their Regiment.
In 1968 the Museum moved to its current location in The Keep – the surviving building of the 1878 Regimental Depot. The displays tell the story of the regiment from its foundation in 1685 to amalgamation with the Royal Norfolk Regiment in 1959.
The history covers the regular, militia, volunteer and war-time battalions as well as the experience of individual soldiers and is told through medals, uniforms, photographs, weapons, equipment and personal memorabilia.
These include:- the surviving Roubaix Drum, buried in France at Dunkirk and retrieved safely after D –Day; the Regimental Brooch presented by the Regiment to its Colonel-in-Chief HRH The Princess Margaret; a superb research collection of badges and insignia; the nameplate of the LNER railway engine, ‘the Suffolk Regiment’; the Imperial German flag, taken down from the German Governor's Building in Togoland on 5th August 1914 - almost certainly the first to be captured during The Great War; Sgt Arthur Saunders’ Victoria Cross; artefacts and photographs telling the harrowing story of those men captured by the Japanese; a National Serviceman's bed space gives a taste of life in the Regiment in the 1950s both at The Depot and on active service’ and much much more!
We firmly believe that this rare survivor is one of the finest regimental collections to be seen anywhere in the country. Please do take the trouble to come along - you will certainly find your visit worthwhile.
Opening Hours
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – 0930-1530
First Sunday of each month – 0930-1530
Free entry, but large group visits need to be booked with the Museum Curator in advance.
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