Southend Central Museum

The Central Museum is a museum in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. The museum houses collections of local and natural history and contains a planetarium constructed by astronomer Harry Ford in 1984.The museum was opened in April 1981 in a Grade II listed building that was previously Southend's first free public library. The library service had moved to a new purpose built site on Victoria Avenue, which opened on 20 March 1974.The buildingThe Museum was originally built in 1905 as a free library, with £8000 of funding from Andrew Carnegie. The architect was Henry Thomas Hare.The collectionsThe Museum features a collection of original Ekco radios, manufactured by E.K. Cole & Co. Ltd. (or 'Ekco') formerly based in Southend. In the 1930s, this company was one of Britain's largest radio manufacturers.The displays also include local and natural history and archaeology.Additional photographs