Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, formerly known as the Museum of Witchcraft, is a museum dedicated to European witchcraft and magic located in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall, south-west England. It houses exhibits devoted to folk magic, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and Wicca, with its collection of such objects having been described as the largest in the world.

The museum was founded by the English folk magician Cecil Williamson in 1951 to display his own personal collection of artefacts. Initially known as the Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft, it was located in the town of Castletown on the Isle of Man. Williamson was assisted at the museum by the prominent Wiccan Gerald Gardner, who remained there as "resident witch". After their friendship deteriorated, Gardner purchased it from Williamson in 1954, renaming it the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft. Gardner's Castletown museum remained open until the 1970s, when Gardner's heir Monique Wilson sold its contents to the Ripley's company.

In 1954, Williamson opened his own rival back in England, known as the Museum of Witchcraft. Its first location was at Windsor, Berkshire, and the next at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire; in both cases it faced violent opposition and Williamson felt it necessary to move, establishing the museum in Boscastle in 1960. In 1996 Williamson sold the museum to Graham King, who incorporated the Richel collection of magical regalia from the Netherlands in 2000. The museum was damaged and part of its collection lost during the Boscastle flood of 2004. In 2013 ownership was transferred to Simon Costin and his Museum of British Folklore.

The museum is a popular tourist attraction and is held in high esteem by the British occult community. A charity, Friends of the Museum of Witchcraft, has been established to raise funds for the exhibits. The museum also contains a large library on related topics that is accessible to researchers.

History

Origins: 1947–60

After the Second World War, the former film producer Cecil Williamson decided to move into the museum business, and—probably influenced by personal interest—decided to open one that would be devoted to the subject of witchcraft.
Williamson tried to open a museum to hold his collection of witchcraft and occult artifacts in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1947, but faced local opposition and had to abandon his plans. He then decided to open it in Castletown on the Isle of Man, an area which had much folklore surrounding fairies and witches, a tourist season, and local laws that were congenial to the establishment of a museum. He had it set up in a dilapidated old mill known locally as ''the Witches' Mill'' which he had purchased in 1948, and, at the advice of his wife, opened an adjacent restaurant, known as ''the Witches' Kitchen''.

The museum was first named the Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft.
The launch of the museum was timed to coincide with the government's repeal of the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts in June 1951. In an interview with ''The Sunday Pictorial'' newspaper, Williamson claimed to be friends with at least a dozen witches, and that he had invited a coven from southern England to come and practice their rituals at his museum. The historian Ronald Hutton deemed this to "fairly clearly" be a reference to the Bricket Wood coven which was based in Hertfordshire and run by the Wiccan Gerald Gardner. In press interviews, Gardner was described as the museum's "resident witch" and performed a magical ritual at the museum's opening ceremony. For Williamson, the press interest served to promote his museum, while for Gardner it gave the opportunity to promote Wicca at a safe distance from his main coven.

Williamson also had a practical interest in magic, and in a 1952 interview with popular magazine ''Illustrated'' described himself as a consultant on the subject who could help remove curses from people, akin to an old cunning man. He acknowledged that he knew many of these spells from reading about them in books. He took an interest in the late ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley and wrote to Crowley's friend Gerald Yorke to enquire as to whether he could send him the instructions for any of Crowley's rituals.

However, Gardner fell out with Williamson over what he saw as sensationalist displays. Williamson, in retaliation, removed a photograph of Gardner from the display.
Williamson sold the museum to Gardner.

The Williamson-Gardner split: 1953–64

Williamson decided to return to England, and took his collection of witchcraft artefacts with him. In 1954 Gardner bought the Witches' Mill from him, and renamed it ''The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft'', filling it with his own collection of artefacts. During the 1950s, Gardner discussed moving his museum to London with his then friend, Charles Cardell, but decided not to. Page 88 According to the historian Ronald Hutton, this left Gardner with "a secure and congenial base" from which he could promote Wicca by writing such books as ''Witchcraft Today'' (1954) and ''The Meaning of Witchcraft'' (1959).
Gardner continued to run the museum until his death in 1964, when it was briefly run by his High Priestess Monique Wilson before it was shut down and the collection sold off.
Ripley's Entertainment Inc. bought the collection and in 1972 opened the "Museum of Witchcraft and Magic" at Gatlinburg, TN and San Francisco, CA. In 1975, due to pressure from the local church and religious groups, Ripley's changed the name of the museums to the "World of the Unexplained". More attractions and items were added to the present witchcraft collection. In 1985, Ripley's closed both museums due to poor ticket sales. The collection was disbursed to other Ripley's museums. A lot of the witchcraft collection was sent to Ripley's Believe It or Not museum at Blackpool, England.

In his will, Gardner left the museum to his assistant there, with the proviso that if he did not want it then it would go to his initiate Monique Wilson, which is what happened.

On his return to England in 1954, Williamson opened the museum, now known as the ''Museum of Witchcraft'', to Windsor. Here it stayed open for the tourist season, and was quite successful, but local opinion was still against it, and so Williamson decided to move it again.
In 1954 Williamson moved the museum to Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire. The museum suffered various persecutions, including signs being painted on walls and dead cats hung from trees, and eventually it was largely damaged in an arson attack.

Boscastle: 1960-present

In 1960 Williamson moved the museum to Boscastle in Cornwall. Williamson displayed some artefacts associated with ceremonial magic, but was largely interested in folk magic and the practices of what he called the "wayside witch".

Williamson retired in 1996, selling the museum to Graham King and Liz Crow.
A practising Pagan with interests in witchcraft, King owned a business manufacturing specialist cameras in Hampshire when he discovered that the museum was for sale in a newspaper article. King and Williamson finalised the purchase at midnight on Halloween 1996. King and Crow reorganised the museum and removed some of the more sensationalist exhibits, such as a partially clothed female mannequin which had been laid on an altar to represent the Black Mass.
King appeared on BBC
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