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The Merrin Collection

Friends and support

Friends get in free, and keep it open.

The museum runs on entry, Friends and gifts. A Friend pays £30 a year, comes in free and borrows from the library of things for nothing.

Choose a membership
A small square tin with faded painted roses and rubbed corners, the lid resting open, on grey paper.

Biscuit tin with roses

Unknown tin printer, about 1950The kitchen, in the second drawerCost new: came full of biscuits

Choose a membership.

Every membership lasts a year from the day you join. Gift memberships come in a card with an object postcard.

  • Friend

    £30 a year

    One adult. Pays for itself in four visits.

    • Free entry, every day we’re open
    • Borrow from the library of things for free
    • The members’ evening before each exhibition
    Join as a Friend

  • Most Friends choose this

    Joint Friends

    £48 a year

    Two adults at one address, and the children.

    • Everything a Friend gets, for two
    • A guest free on Thursday evenings
    • Twice-yearly letter from the curator
    Join as Joint Friends

  • Patron

    £150 a year

    For the people who keep the archive open.

    • Everything Joint Friends get
    • A private hour in the archive with Nell
    • Your name on the board in the yard
    Join as a Patron
The archive reading room: grey archive boxes on an oak table, a ledger open on a cushion, white gloves and a brass lamp.

What your £30 pays for.

Admission covers the lights and the front desk. Friends pay for everything else: the acid-free boxes the archive is kept in, the lift, the Saturday mornings in the library of things and the conservator who comes twice a year.

Last year Friends paid for 340 new archive boxes, the reading-room lamp and the repair of the cart doors under the arch.

Membership questions.

Can I give a membership as a present?

Yes. Ask at the front desk or write to us. It comes in a card with a postcard of an object, and the year starts when it is first used.

Can you claim Gift Aid?

Yes, if you pay UK income tax. It adds 25% to your membership at no cost to you; we’ll ask when you join.

How do I cancel?

Memberships don’t renew on their own. We write a month before the year ends, and if you don’t reply, it simply ends.

Or give to the archive.

£5 buys an archive box that keeps a family’s letters safe for a century. Give once at the front desk, by bank transfer or by post.

How to give
A square clear glass inkwell with its brass lid open and dried blue ink inside, a wooden dip pen beside it.

Inkwell and dip pen

Unknown glassworks, about 1915The schoolroom, on the teacher’s tableCost new: fourpence