The Heritage Campus on 56A Avenue in the neighbourhood of Cloverdale is home to the Museum of Surrey, the custodian of the city’s history including that of the indigenous people of the locality. The campus dates back to 1872, occupying an unceded and ancestral land of the native Salish peoples.
The museum consists of a main building wherein you’ll find an Indigenous Hall, a feature gallery, the TD Explore Zone, the Textile Centre and the Surrey Stories Gallery.
The Indigenous Hall is a place of exhibition, gathering, and storytelling as governed and approved by the Semiahmoo First Nation, Kwantlen First Nation, and Katzie First Nation. The hall is a dynamic, living space where the exhibitions evolve and change as relationships with the native community grow and strengthen.
The TD Explore Zone is a children-oriented gallery focused on sustainability to educate kids on protecting Surrey’s natural environment of river, forest, wetlands, and ocean. It allows the children as well to learn the dynamics of agriculture and urban development in relation to the natural surroundings.
The Textile Centre displays cultural threads, fabrics, and patterns woven throughout Surrey and donated to the museum by a local weaving expert and mentor, Honey Hooser. You’ll also find here the Jacquard Loom, which was invented in France in 1804 to create intricate patterns using a punch card method.
The museum’s Surrey Stories Gallery displays historic and contemporary items about the city, focusing on a range of topics. The exhibits’ themes vary from farming to living in the 1950s and even extend to the city’s first responders.
On the museum’s east side, more learnings on history are in store in three heritage buildings. One of these, the circa 1881 Town Hall was in use until 1912 and was relocated to the campus from Christ Church on Old McLellan Road.
The other vintage building in the campus are the 1891 Anniedale School and the 1872 Anderson Cabin documented as the oldest building still standing in Surrey.
The Surrey Archives and the Cloverdale Library are also within the Heritage Campus, along with the Veterans Square on a plaza at the centre.
Abilities Neurological Rehabilitation
Next in this series of points of interest in Surrey of British Columbia, you can learn about Fraser Valley Heritage Railway.