Staithes Museum

A coconut shell. A pincushion. A shipwreck survivor. A Royal Navy expedition. A Captain Cook monument. And a journey of thousands of miles. Some museum objects announce their importance immediately. They are large, beautiful, rare or obviously historic. Others are rather more deceptive. Our Object of the Month is one of the latter. At first glance, it looks like a rather attractive piece of old coconut shell, polished to a warm brown, with the inside adapted to make a pincushion with a piece...

Hello everyone, September has been a busy one at Staithes Museum, with a record-breaking Arts Festival, a special premiere of our new museum film, and plenty of fascinating discoveries in the archives! Our latest newsletter is below, with all the news from behind the scenes, stories from the Eileen Huby collection, our poetry competition winners, six new blog posts, and a few mysteries we could do with your help solving. Thank you, as always, for your continued interest and support. There’s...

What is the story behind Staithes Museum? It is a surprisingly complicated question. The museum is housed in the old Primitive Methodist chapel on Church Street, but the story of the museum is much more than the story of a building. It is the story of Anne and Reg Firth, who created the museum; of the people who helped to save it after Reg's death; of generations of Staithes families; and of the objects, photographs, memories and traditions that have found their way into the collection. Now...