MCC Museum

The MCC Museum was opened by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh in 1953 and is one of the oldest sporting museums in the world.

Its collection, which was begun in 1864, spans the full history of cricket from its emergence as a major sport in the early 18th century, to the modern age of Twenty20 and the IPL. It includes material relating to the greatest players and events but also the grassroots, community cricket clubs which form the bedrock of the game.

The Museum’s most famous exhibit is the original Ashes urn, a personal gift to England captain the Hon. Ivo Bligh in 1882/83, later donated to MCC by his widow in 1928. This tiny and fragile object, cricket’s most precious artefact, rarely leaves Lord’s, when it last did so, for the 2006/07 MCC Travelex Ashes Exhibition in Australia more than 100,000 people came to see it.

Other popular attractions include the stuffed sparrow that was 'bowled out' by Jehangir Khan in 1936, and the copy of Wisden that helped to sustain EW 'Jim' Swanton throughout his captivity, in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, during the Second World War.

The Museum's other displays include cricket kit used by some of the greatest players of all time - such as Victor Trumper, Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman and Shane Warne.

The life and achievements of WG Grace - perhaps the most famous cricketer of all - also receive appropriate recognition, with the Museum displaying portraits, busts and other memorabilia associated with the incomparable 'WG'.

Many such items date back to the 19th century; indeed, the Museum benefits from the fact that MCC has been collecting cricketing artefacts since 1864.

Over 140 years later, MCC continues to enhance its collection of historic and contemporary items. For example, it commissions both young and established artists to add to its displays of cricket-related paintings - with some of the most recent additions being works by Fanny Rush and Karen Neale.

As well as housing static displays, the MCC Museum includes the Brian Johnston Memorial Theatre, which enables visitors to see footage of some of the greatest performances in cricket's long and illustrious history.

Opening & ticket prices

The Museum is open throughout the year and is part of the famous Lord's Tour.

Library and Archive

The MCC Archive holds approximately 30 cubic metres of records relating to MCC, cricket and associated bodies.

Progress on the cataloguing of the archive began in March 2012 and details of the records catalogued can be found via the Club's online records, which can be viewed here . The archive includes records from the eighteenth century to the present day and can only be accessed at Lord’s.

The archive includes original volumes of the MCC minutes, original scorecards and scorebooks of MCC and England tours, MCC matches and matches at Lord’s, operational files relating to MCC departments, laws of lawn tennis, scrapbooks compiled by R A Fitzgerald, Pelham Warner and Gubby Allen, personal archives of F S Ashley-Cooper, Irving Rosenwater and Alec Bedser, and audio and visual material including the MCC Audio Archive – an interview project that commenced in 2003.