Best Free British Museums - The Ashmolean

The Ashmolean is the UK's oldest museum open to the public. It is also part of Oxford University and museum staff and collections are often incorporated in the univeristy's degree courses. The Ashmolean is named after Elias Ashmole, a seventeenth century collector of antiquities, who gave his collections to the museum on condition that they be housed in a custom built museum.

The museum, as it exists today, is the product of a 1908 merger of the original Ashmolean with an even older institution, The University Art Collection, which was founded in 1620 as a collection of portraits and curiosities displayed in the University's Bodleian Library.

As was often the case in the 17th to the early 19th centuries, collectors of antiquities amassed objects of curiosity in a relatively random, though fascinating way. Some of those kinds of objects are still displayed at the Ashmolean. So, for example, visitors can see the lantern Guy Fawkes was carrying on his way to blow up Parliament in 1605 and a sword which may have been given to Henry VIII by the Pope - before he decided to divorce and break away from the Church, no doubt.

The museum also exhibits a Stradivarius violin known as the "Messiah",one of the most famous Stradivari in existence. It is not called the Messiah because it is in any way miraculous, but simply because one of its owners in the 19th century often boasted about it but never showed it. A friend commented that it was like the Messiah, "always promised but never appearing." The violin is never played but forms part of the university's study collection.

• Powhatan's deerskin mantle. Powhatan was Pocahontas' father.
• The Alfred Jewel, an Anglo Saxon ornament of gold, enamel and rock crystal. An Anglo Saxon inscription on the jewel says "Alfred ordered me to be made," indicating an association with King Alfred the Great.
• Drawings by Michaelangelo, Raphael and Rembrandt
• Several other old master paintings
• A striking sculptured bust of Sir Christopher Wren, credited to a sculptor in his studio and most likely done from life.
• The Jericho Skull, a 10,000 year old representation of the human form and one of the oldest ever found.
• A Renaissance dirty joke in Maiolica. The pottery plate, painted by Francesco Urbini, is decorated with a head composed entirely of penises, an inscription on the plate says "Every man looks at me as if I were a head of dicks" Astonishing to realise that particular vulgarity has a history that goes back almost 500 years. The plate, painted between 1530 and 1537, it is said to be a satirical comment on the sexual explicitness of many of the writers of the period.

In 2009, the Ashmolean reopened to the public after undergoing a £61 million renovation. The transformation involved creating an entirely new, five story building within the Ashmolean's historic facade. The new building has given the Ashmolean 100% more exhibition space and has turned it from a fusty institution, academic in a very old fashioned sense, to an exciting contemporary museum, capable of showing off its world famous collections to a modern audience. Today's visitors can explore 39 new galleries, learning about the history of civilizations through time, east and west.

The renovations did not simply create a new look museum but a virtually new museum. When it was reopened by the Queen in 2009, Christopher Brown, the museum's director, told the BBC, "From the outset, our ambition has been to create not just an improved and expanded version of Britain's oldest public museum, but something significantly different in kind: A new way of showcasing the Ashmolean's remarkable collections, for the benefit of the widest possible audience."

If you are planning a visit to Oxford or the nearby areas - The Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Blenheim Palace are all within striking distance - you can see for yourself whether they succeeded.

Though it began in the eccentric curiosities of early collectors, the Ashmolean has since become one of the world's great centers for study collections of European and Eastern Antiquities. The Ashmolean's collection of Greek antiquities is considered one of the finest in the world, outside of Greece.

Sir Arthur Evans, who unearthed the Bronze Age, Minoan city of Knossos on Crete, was Keeper of the Ashmolean from 1884 to 1908. He bequeathed his archive, including architectural plans, elevations and drawings done during the excavations and reconstructions, to the museum. The archive can be explored online as part of the Oxford Digital Library.

Objects from Evans' excavations in the Palace of Minos at Knossos form the bulk of the museum's important Cretan collection, given to Evans by successive Greek governments in recognition of his work.

Anyone familiar with the criticism that followed Evans' Knossos reconstructions - which many believe masked much of the real archaeology of the site - will be interested in the materials that show the site as it was excavated and describe the reconstructions in detail.

Egyptian and Nubian antiquities formed part of the Ashmolean collection almost from the very beginning - with objects coming into the collections as early as 1683. But most of the Egyptian collection dates from British excavations from the 1880s to the late 1930s. The Oxford archaeologist and professor cum adventurer could have been the model for Indiana Jones. Today, the Ashmoleans Egyptian collections are the most extensive in Britain and cover every period of Egyptian history from prehistory through the 7th century AD.

In November 2011, the museum opened new Egyptian and Nubian galleries, created at a cost of £5million. The new galleries take visitors on a chronological journey of 5,000 years and allow the museum to exhibit parts of its world famous collection that have been in storage for decades.

• Address: The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Beaumont St, Oxford, OX1 2PH
• Contact: +44 (0)1865 278002
• Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays, 10a.m. to 6p.m.
• Western Art Print Room Hours:Tuesday to Saturday 10a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2p.m. to 5 p.m.
• Print Room Contact: For information and appointments - +44(0)1865 278049 or +44(0)1865 288289
• Admission: Free, though admission may be charged for some special exhibitions.
• Access: Wheelchairs are usually available free of charge from the information desk.
• Shop: Shop on the lower ground floor features jewelry and gift items inspired by the Ashmolean collections.
• Restaurants: The museum has a full-service, rooftop restaurant and casual cafe near the shop on the lower ground floor. Cream teas are served there all afternoon.
• Getting There: The Ashmolean is smack in the center of Oxford, about a 10 minute walk along Hythe Bridge Road to Beaufort Street from the train station. It's ideally placed for a fine day out from London. Read more about getting from London to Oxford.
• Visit their website