Discover Victorian Seaside Holiday Fun and Eastbourne's Bronze Age Mystery this Year all with Heritage Eastbourne!

Heritage Eastbourne has got a super season of captivating interactive exhibitions plus a great line-up of fun and engaging events in store for 2016! From Bronze Age discoveries to WWI and a free vintage Summer Holiday programme, you'll want to head to Eastbourne from 21 March when the Redoubt Fortress opens its gates for this fabulous season! What's more, the majority of exhibitions are completely free, so great family days out with Heritage Eastbourne are accessible to all this year!

Did you know that 21 years ago, the UK's biggest Bronze Age causeway was discovered in Shinewater Park in Eastbourne? Well it was, and now for the first time the stories and fascinating mysteries of the people who lived in Eastbourne and built this astonishing track-way over 3000 years ago, are being brought to the foreground in an exciting new and free exhibition at the Pavilion, on Eastbourne's seafront!

Opening on 21 March, Making Tracks: Eastbourne’s Bronze Age Mystery recreates part of the Bronze Age causeway, contains a display of never before seen artefacts from the British Museum, Bronze Age items such as axes and jewellery uncovered in Eastbourne and allows you, the visitor to piece together the prehistoric puzzle to discover the tales of international visitors and human inventiveness from an astonishing time period! 

There's even a free dedicated Bronze Age Day on 23 July which celebrates the exhibition giving you the opportunity to have a go at making Bronze Age food, shoes and even flint making, in a family fun day which you and your children will love!

Summer might seem a little far away right now, but the Redoubt already has a great summer exhibition and activities lined-up! In another free exhibition, discover Eastbourne’s journey from a Victorian seaside ‘tennis town’ to 1970’s mass market seaside resort in the Seaside Holiday exhibition from 23 July to 5 September! The nostalgic exhibition will showcase some great holiday memorabilia from 1940’s bathing costumes, to an exquisite Railway Porter’s uniform heralding the days of luxury steam travel and Lewis Carroll’s renowned bed desk, designed especially for his holidays in Eastbourne.

With postcards, photographs and memories on display, you can leave your own memories at the exhibition, whilst your kids will love taking part in themed activities on the parade ground. With traditional seaside fun with free sandpits and a summer play park, your children will be occupied for hours, letting you relax with a Colonel Coffee and Sergeants Scone or a Trench Toastie in the vintage Outpost Cafe!

Also opening on the 21 March, when the Napoleonic fortress re-opens for the season, you'll discover a brand new WW1 exhibition in the fortress's fascinating military museum! For Hearth, Home and Honour? Eastbourne Learns the Reality of War uncovers the story of 11 Sussex men, all either wounded or killed at the Battle of Boar’s Head and shows the human side of war and its effect upon both the soldiers and the local community. With real footage of soldiers marching through the town’s train station, diary extracts, poetic sounds of the battlefield and a display of Eastbourne’s very own Victoria Cross winner, Nelson Victor Carter. Visiting with children? Younger visitors can also interact with a soldier’s kit bag of interactive equipment to help them discover life as a soldier!

The 200 year old fortress is home to many more renowned exhibits, from rare WW1 trench art to a captured German staff car; step back in time in the interactive 1940’s garden, featuring real aerial and audio footage of a Sussex family watching the Battle of Britain overhead.

Plan ahead for the year and make some awesomely authentic Halloween plans, as the Redoubt hosts two weekends of spooky Twilight Ghost Tours in October in which you can explore the creepy corridors by night! 

Talking of night time, the Redoubt joins in with the national Museums at Night celebration from the 13-15 May with its very own film festival. Adults will love the spine tingling screening of The Mummy (1959), complete with an introduction to Egyptian curses from a renowned Egyptologist, plus the terrifying screening of Alien (1979), whilst a family friendly event will screen One of My Dinosaurs is Missing (1975) and will have some fossil making fun thrown in for good dino-measure!

If you like cake and learning, then you'll be happy to know that last year's successful Culture and Cake series is back and even bigger this year! During the fascinating and engaging talks, passionate historians cover subjects such as Learning to Live With Ghosts and Health, Wealth and Happiness by the Sea, at the monthly talks from April to October! 

The Redoubt opens every day from 21 March until 13 November. Entry to the Making Tracks and Seaside Holiday exhibitions, cafés, parade ground and gun platform is free. Museum entry includes the WW1 exhibition and costs £4.50 per adult, £2.50 per child or £12 per family. Every ticket includes a free return visit in 2016, or visit the free Bronze Age exhibition and complete the exhibition trail for free kids entry to the museum!  For further information visit www.EastbourneMuseums.co.uk or telephone 01323 410300.