Stockwood Discovery Centre, Luton

Luton Museums Service may not be that large, but it won a battle with one of the world's richest museums a few years ago when New York's Museum of Metropolitan Art tried to get its hands on the Wenlok jug.

The department for culture prevented this rare piece of metalwork from Bedfordshire in the 1400s from being exported, giving Luton time to raise the £750,000 needed to secure the item and trounce America's big spenders.

Unsurprisingly, the jug takes pride of place at Luton's £6m Stockwood Discovery Centre, which opened in July. Its display in the entrance immediately establishes the centre as a local history museum for the local community. Alongside the jug are coloured clay jugs made by young people as interpretations of the Wenlok piece.

This exhibition space will be updated annually and shows the centre's commitment to community involvement, which is reinforced elsewhere in the museum through a series of projects that have resulted in community-created displays.

The museum occupies a former stable block that has been extended, plus some new buildings. It is in Stockwood Park, which was created in the 1960s when Stockwood House was demolished.

The museum's broad remit covers social history, archaeology, natural history and land transport, taking in events from the ice age through to the 20th century. Visitors pass though lots of small galleries that are spread over a large site. Most of the content has direct links to local history and is relevant in that sense, but it is a challenge to develop a holistic picture of Luton's past.

Aside from local history, the other thread sewing the experience together is the environment. Where possible, the sustainable nature of the buildings, exhibits and operations is communicated to the visitor. The new entrance building is grass roofed and many of the wooden structures use cedar cladding from sustainable forests.

From the entrance, an attractive walkway and circular orientation space, guides visitors towards the cafe, the Climb Time play area, the gardens, the Bee Gallery and beyond that the Discovery Galleries.

The Discovery Hall is at the side of the entrance and its introductory displays address how the development of transport and the changing use of the landscape have made an impact on our environment.

Discovery Hall includes: Life's Journey, the Mossman Gallery and Springs and Wheels. These galleries are dominated by the Mossman carriages, which form the most significant collection of its kind in the country.

The variety of horse-drawn vehicles on display is astonishing, and includes an 1860 town coach, an invalid carriage, the first taxi cab, a red fire carriage and two hearses (one plain wood and the other more elaborate for those of a higher social status). The objects in these galleries are accompanied by emotive stories, many of them oral histories from locals.

The temporary exhibition, Inspired by Stitch, occupies the final gallery in Discovery Hall. The focus of this show is the Mary Greening coverlet from 1858 and the new Stockwood coverlet, created by a local community quilting group specifically for the Discovery Centre.

This exhibition is simple yet contemporary and the quilts are a visual treat. It has strong links to issues of identity, community and recycling and has plenty of activities for young people to engage with.

Stockwood's grounds include the kind of garden you would expect from a grand 18th-century house, but also include the Discovery Gardens, which feature healthy eating, sensory medicinal, wildlife and world gardens.

Hidden in the gardens in the original stable block of the house are the Discovery Galleries containing the Disappearing Trades and Crafts Gallery. This is inspired by Thomas Wyatt Bagshawe, who was director of Luton's museum from 1927-47.

Bagshawe had a love for preserving traditional ways of life and amassed a large collection, which he donated to Luton Museums, on the condition that enough space is dedicated to celebrating disappearing local trades. Each year the gallery will explore a particular trade or craft that Bagshawe feared would have been forgotten over time.

The Discovery Galleries then travel further into the past exploring Medieval Luton and the Roman period and then back to the ice age with fossils, mammoth tusks and other natural history objects on display. A final gallery is dedicated to the story of Stockwood House itself.

Stockwood is far from being a museum of glass cases. There are many opportunities for hands-on activities. The centre is free and
it has worked hard to remove physical and intellectual barriers to the collections and encourage relationships between the visitors and the objects on display. Using discovery centre rather than museum in its name reflects the eclectic experiences on offer and its appeal to a family audience.

Vicky Brightman is the head of learning at the Horniman Museum, London