Bucks County Museum

The permanent collection at Bucks County Museum in Aylesbury has developed incrementally over the years to cover local history and culture in vast breadth, from wildlife to people, from geology to archaeology and art. Its centrepiece is the Lenborough Hoard of over 5000 Anglo-Saxon coins, discovered nearby by metal detectorists in 2014. Our brief was to give the collection improved coherence, decluttering layers of dated, ad-hoc interpretation to shift the focus – and curatorial confidence – back onto the objects themselves.

The museum is based in a Grade II-listed building, enabling us to work within existing rooms, allocating a different colour and subject matter to each. Key objects – the hoard, for example – are framed through connecting thresholds, leading visitors to new spaces. The displays within deep thresholds act as links between subject areas, using artefacts to make thematic connections. We collaborated with BOB Design to develop graphics that bring characters and creatures from history to life at a realistic size.