The Queen’s Royal Regiment established a museum at Stoughton Barracks, Guildford, in 1924. The East Surrey Regiment opened their museum at The Barracks in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1928. After the amalgamation in 1959, Regimental Headquarters was established at Kingston Barracks. The contents of both museums were assembled there and later, under the direction of Major F J Read were moved to the TA Centre in Portsmouth Road, Kingston-upon-Thames when Regimental Headquarters moved there. Here the museum of The Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment was established in 1962. The archives, records and exhibits were merged for the first time to provide an important and valuable regimental asset.

Because of further regimental amalgamations and changes the museum was closed in January 1978 and the contents of the museum were put into store.

Negotiations commenced in 1978 between The National Trust and the Museum Trustees under the chairmanship of Colonel J W Sewell. The National Trust offered four derelict rooms in the basement of Clandon House, Clandon Park, Guildford. Much work had to be done before the museum was ready to receive visitors but finally, in April 1981, the museum opened at Clandon Park. From then until 1999, the museum continued to provide a first-class research service, sponsored the writing of several books and supplements, organised exhibitions of a regimental interest, both within the museum, and County towns.

The National Trust indicated in 1997 they would require the rooms which housed the museum for National Trust purposes. Accordingly under the chairmanship of Colonel Peter Durrant and then Colonel Mac McConnell, strenuous efforts were made to find a new home for the museum, but all potential sites proved to be too costly.

Brigadier Bob Acworth then re-opened negotiations with the National Trust which after considerable effort bore fruit with the offer by the Trust of a new lease. The new lease provides a secure home for the museum at Clandon Park until 2011 but on the basis of sharing one of the rooms with the Trust to allow for the expansion of their commercial activities. At this stage Captain Adrian Birtles became Chairman of the Museum Trustees, and it was decided with the financial support of the Regiment to carry out a comprehensive refurbishment of the Museum. Fortuitously the National Trust agreed at the same time to replace the museum’s electrical circuits, lighting and ceilings. To enable all this work to be done, the museum remained closed for the 2001 season.

The refurbished museum re-opened to the public in March 2002 and has completely new showcases, with the displays re-arranged, some modern electronic equipment and a brand new shop and information point as well as improved research facilities.

The formal inauguration of the refurbished museum was performed by the Chairman of The National Trust, Mr. Charles Nunneley, in the presence of Mrs. Sarah Goad, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Surrey, Brigadier Bob Acworth, President of the Regimental Association and numeral civic dignitaries and members of the regimental family. This ceremony emphasised the close working relationship between the museum and the National Trust at Clandon Park and the continuing importance of the historic ties between the regiment and its home county.

The museum is now again serving its public, telling the regimental story, and providing facilities for research both for the military historian and for families investigating the actions of their forebears. The museum welcomes research enquries and will quickly check whether relevant material is available; it is regretted that the museum staffing does not allow detailed investigations to be done on behalf of enquirers, but is happy to provide facilities at the museum for researchers to view the archives.

[N.B. Military museums do not hold copies of army personnel records as such. These are all at the Public Record Office at Kew, South-West London. Archives at the museum do nonetheless contain a great deal about the men of the regiment and their actions.]