Walk around a museum and you'll find thousands of objects. A fishing hook. A pair of clogs. A sailor's compass. A child's toy. A faded photograph. Each one has a story, but museums don't always know every part of it. Who held it last?What was happening on the day it was used?What hopes did it carry? What arguments did it overhear? What adventures did it survive? Sometimes history leaves us facts. Sometimes it leaves us questions. Poetry has a wonderful way of filling the spac

From the Staithes Museum Newsletter, June 2026. Speaking of poetry this month… Cowbar Nab looks fixed and familiar now, but in the poetry and stories of Staithes it is rarely just a lump of sandstone. It becomes a pulpit, a racecourse grandstand, a weather gauge, and occasionally even a punchline. If you listen carefully, it seems less like a landscape and more like a place that keeps getting re-described by whoever is standing in front of it. ⛪ John Castillo — Cowbar as sacr

From the Staithes Museum Newsletter, April 2026 As the "scented breeaze blows oot o' t' west," there is no more evocative way to mark the arrival of spring in Staithes than through the verses of its most famous dialect poet, Arthur Stanley Umpleby. In his 1935 anthology, A Bo’ddin o’ Cowls (A Bundle of Heather), Umpleby captured the unique beauty of the village during its most vibrant season. The Ballade of Staithes The opening stanza of his celebrated "Ballade of Staithes" s