The Museum is housed in a Grade II listed former National School built in 1843. Converted to a Museum in 1967, it has been steadily improved and extended. The main museum was re-furbished and re-displayed with the assistance of lottery funding in 2000-01. The Transport Gallery was re-displayed, again with assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and re-opened in April 2006.

It has recently been selected as a top ten local museum by the Guardian. The collections are one of the largest social history assemblages in the South West. They are particularly strong in agriculture, costume, domestic items, lace manufacture and transport, and feature a major regional collection of farm waggons and carts, an ex GWR 0-4-2T locomotive, an 1837 fire engine, a 'Mini' car, a 1670 cider press, selection of mantraps, Lower Palaeolithic handaxes, weights and measures, lace machinery, an illicit still, dentist's chair, coffin, large cooper's plane, Anderson shelter, German machine gun, large doll's house, gambadoes, chemist's jars and a new 'Dyson'. It is a rich collection of historic objects with an increasing number of newer ones.