Free at Hillingdon Museum in Uxbridge until 30 September 2027: more than 30 residents' recorded memories, played through replica telephone handsets.
A free display built from residents’ own recorded memories opened at Hillingdon Museum in Uxbridge on Friday. It runs for almost a year, until 30 September 2027.
The display is called Hillingdon at 60. It sits inside the museum at the Civic Centre on Uxbridge High Street, and visitors hear the recordings through sound cups styled as vintage replica telephones. (Hillingdon at 60, Hillingdon Council events)
The council says the display draws on excerpts from more than 30 recordings. They were made at Reminiscence Roadshows held in libraries across the borough last year, to mark Hillingdon’s Diamond Jubilee, and the borough’s heritage team put the collection together. (Remembering 60 years of Hillingdon, Hillingdon Council)
What is on show
- excerpts from more than 30 resident recordings, on themes of everyday life, work, community and change
- an interactive map where younger visitors add their favourite place in the borough
- the recordings play through sound cups shaped like vintage replica telephones
The council has published two of the memories. One contributor from Yeading recalls the years after the A312 opened in Hayes, and passing the Nestlé factory every morning: “I would get the smell of coffee, it was wonderful.” Another remembers a school being told to stand out in the playground, without being told why, to watch Concorde’s first test flight from Heathrow.
When you can go, and the time to watch
Entry is free. The museum is next door to Uxbridge Library, in the Middlesex Suite building at the Civic Centre, High Street, Uxbridge UB8 1UW.
The council gives two different closing times for the same building, so plan around the earlier one:
- the exhibition listing says the collection can be viewed Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4.30pm, and Sunday 10am to 1pm
- the museum’s own service page says the museum and the search room both close at 4pm, Monday to Saturday, with Sunday 10am to 1pm (Hillingdon Museum and Archives Services)
The council has not reconciled the two pages. Until it does, a visit after 4pm on a weekday risks finding the doors shut.
Why 60 years
Hillingdon was created in 1965. The council names the areas it was formed from as Uxbridge, Ruislip-Northwood, Hayes and Harlington, and Yiewsley and West Drayton. The council set that out on the listing for the exhibition’s preview talk, held on 3 September. (Hillingdon at 60: Preview Talk)
That is why the museum’s oldest voices are worth more than nostalgia. People recorded for this display can remember a time when Uxbridge, Ruislip and Hayes were run by different councils, with different rules and different budgets.
What else is in the museum
The rest of the museum is free to walk round on the same visit. It holds:
- Hillingdon’s Treasures, a selection of artefacts and archives from the borough collection
- Shopping in Hillingdon, on retail from the 19th century to now
- an interactive Victorian home display, with an original fireplace from the council’s own collection
- the Basset’s Grant, a document from the 1100s
- the Hillingdon Hoard, more than 300 Iron Age coins called potins, dating from the 1st century BCE
The service also runs a search room, on the same opening hours as the museum, for anyone researching local or family history. Copies are charged for: 10p for a black and white A4 photocopy, 40p for colour A4, and £5 for a digital image sent by email. Using an image commercially, including in a business’s planning application, costs a further £20 per image. (Costs for our services, Hillingdon Council)
What it means for you
If you have been meaning to take children or visiting relatives somewhere free in Uxbridge, this is a year-long option that did not exist a week ago. It costs nothing, it is in the town centre, and the rest of the museum comes with it.
Two practical points. The museum is inside the Civic Centre, so the nearest paid parking is the council’s town centre car parks. HillingdonFirst cardholders pay roughly half what everyone else pays there, and our parking in Uxbridge page sets out the tariffs. If you are making a day of it, the display sits alongside the other free and low-cost options on our things to do in Uxbridge page.
If you gave a recording at one of last year’s roadshows, your own voice may be in the display. The council has not published a list of which recordings were used.
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