Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery is Cornwall’s largest museum of cultural history and stories about the life and people of Cornwall. It is home to over one million objects.

This landmark building in the centre of Truro is home to more than a million objects. The collections of treasures, artefacts, art and photography help to explain Cornwall, its language, Cornish identity and life in our region. Through these objects we can look at the lives of the people of Cornwall through time, the things they have kept, collected or found.

We can see how Cornwall’s unique geology shaped the livelihoods, culture and identity of the people living here, from the Bronze Age to the current day. We can explore Cornwall’s wildlife and the impact of human actions. 

Through the permanent collections, displayed in the Heart of Cornwall Gallery, Mineral Gallery, Nature Gallery, the Art Gallery on the upper balconies and the Ancient Civilisations Gallery, you can uncover how the Cornwall we know today came to be.  

The newly named Cornwall Museum boasts a spectacular new art gallery showcasing a nationally significant art collection.

Alongside the large number of works from the permanent collection going on display in March, there will be a busy programme of art exhibitions, beginning with Kurt Jackson’s Biodiversity and continuing with Exploring Time: A Painter’s Perspective by artist and environmentalist, Tony Foster.

The towering walls of the second-floor balcony, which overlook the central gallery, will be put to maximum use with a ‘salon hang’, meaning paintings will be displayed virtually from floor to ceiling, while cases will display sculptures and fragile works on paper.

The organisation is part-way through a major transformation which began with the Mineral Gallery last year and will continue with improvements to the upper galleries and facilities in 2026/27.

Opening hours:

Monday – Sunday: 10.00 – 16.00

Early Closing Christmas Eve & New Years Eve

Closed Christmas Day & New Years Day