Keswick Museum is a

local museum A local museum or local history museum is a type of museum that shows the historical development of a place/region (local history) using exhibits. These museums usually maintain a collection of historic three-dimensional objects which are exh ...

based in Keswick in the

English Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

, which exhibits aspects of the landscape, history and culture of the area.

History

The collection was established as the Keswick Museum of Local and Natural History, a creation of the Keswick Literary and Scientific Society, in the Moot Hall, in 1873. An important item in the original collection at the Moot Hall was a three-dimensional model of the Lake District, measuring 12 feet by 9 feet, made by Joseph and James Flintoft in 1837. The collection moved to purpose-built facilities, in Fitz Park, constructed as a memorial to the Hewetson brothers, distinguished Keswick benefactors, in 1897. Cannon

Hardwicke Rawnsley Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (29 September 1851 – 28 May 1920) was an Anglican priest, poet, local politician and conservationist. He became nationally and internationally known as one of the three founders of the National Trust for Places of H ...

, one of founders of the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

, attended the opening of the art gallery at the museum, in 1906. The Fitz Park Trust got into financial difficulties and the collection was rescued by Allerdale Council in April 1994. Then, in February 2007, Keswick Museum and Art Gallery Management Limited was formed to operate the museum on behalf of the council as the sole trustee. The building was extensively refurbished, with financial support from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

, at a cost of £2.1 million between September 2012 and May 2014.

The collection

The museum has a collection of about 20,000 objects, of which 5-10% are on display. While these include material relating to the whole of north

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, the museum now only collects items from the Derwent Seven Parishes, approximately the CA12 postcode area. The collection includes artifacts from Keswick's landscape, history and culture as well as the three-dimensional model made by Joseph and James Flintoft. It also includes The

Musical Stones of Skiddaw The Musical Stones of Skiddaw are a number of lithophones built across two centuries around the town of Keswick, northern England, using hornfels, a stone from the nearby Skiddaw mountain, which is said to have a superior tone and longer ring than ...

, a number of

lithophone A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). It is an idiophone comparable to instrumen ...

s built across two centuries around the town of Keswick using

hornfels Hornfels is the group name for a set of contact metamorphic rocks that have been baked and hardened by the heat of intrusive igneous masses and have been rendered massive, hard, splintery, and in some cases exceedingly tough and durable. These pro ...

, a stone from the nearby

Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is the sixth-highest in England. It lies just north of the town of Keswick, Cumbria, and dominates the skyline in this part of the northern lakes. It is the ...

mountain, which is said to have a superior tone and longer ring than the more commonly used slate. Other items in the collection include a 700-year-old cat (found

mummified A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

within the wall of a church at

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

near Penrith), a

penny-farthing The penny-farthing, also known as a high wheel, high wheeler or ordinary, is an early type of bicycle. It was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel providing high speeds (owing to its travelling a large distance for every r ...

bicycle and a

man-trap ''Man-Trap'' is a 1961 American neo-noir film about a Korean War veteran who becomes involved in a scheme to steal $3.5 million from a Central American dictator. The film was directed by Edmond O'Brien and stars Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen and ...

. The ''Hugh Walpole Collection'' includes manuscripts of all the ''Herries'' novels by

Hugh Walpole Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (13 March 18841 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among th ...

(four novels set in the Lake District) and letters to Walpole from 13 leading English writers. The

Mountain Heritage Trust A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher ...

maintains a changing exhibition in the museum: in 2018/19 "Man and Mountain" featured

Chris Bonington Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL (born 6 August 1934) is a British mountaineer. His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest. Early life and expeditions Bonington's father, w ...

, and in 2019/20 it focused on

Siegfried Herford Siegfried Wedgwood Herford (1891 – 28 January 1916) was a British climber who was active in the years immediately before World War I. He and John Laycock and Stanley Jeffcoat initiated what is referred to as " gritstone climbing" in England, b ...

References

External links

*
The Museum's official Facebook page
* ''The Museum's 2014 information leaflet''
Description of the collections on Allerdale Borough Council website
* ''Illustrates 44 works'' * *
"Kewsick Museum and Art Gallery Management Ltd, registered charity no. 1156330"
',

Charity Commission for England and Wales , type = Non-ministerial government department , seal = , seal_caption = , logo = Charity Commission for England and Wales logo.svg , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , d ...

{{authority control Museums in Cumbria Art museums and galleries in Cumbria Geology museums in England Natural history museums in England Local museums in Cumbria Art museums established in 1873 1873 establishments in England 1897 establishments in England Keswick, Cumbria