Staithes Museum Newsletter June 2026

Hello everyone,

The latest museum newsletter has just landed! The full version is linked here, or in a text-only version below.

This month's edition is packed with all sorts of exciting things happening behind the scenes and around the museum. Inside you'll find:

• Our brand new Poetry Competition (plus a colourful Poetry Adventure Booklet to get everyone writing)

• The triumphant entrance of our newly restored Captain Cook portrait

• Why Bill Hinchley now has his own appreciation society...

• What the trustees have been plotting

• An update on the museum accreditation visit (wish us luck!)

• Alan's fascinating historical fiction project

• Some thought-provoking museum ethics from my apprenticeship

• A journey through the many poetic faces of Cowbar

• Audio guide news, collection updates, and plenty more besides.

As always, thank you to everyone who gives their time, enthusiasm and support to the museum. Every month I'm reminded just how many interesting things are happening because of our volunteers, trustees and friends.

I hope you enjoy the read, and if anything particularly catches your eye, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

See you at the museum!

Best wishes,

Rosie

📛 The Bill Hinchley Appreciation Society

Something rather wonderful has been happening...

Since we started showing Bill Hinchley's film in the museum, visitors have been absolutely loving it. We've lost count of the number of people who've come out saying, "That was brilliant!"

Even better, Bill tells us that complete strangers have started stopping him in the street to say how much they enjoyed the film. (Local celebrity status achieved!)

So, naturally, there was only one sensible thing to do...

We've created Bill Hinchley Appreciation Society pin badges!

They're available in the museum shop for just 50p. Wear yours with pride, give Bill a cheerful wave if you spot him around Staithes, and help celebrate one of the people who's done so much to keep the village's stories alive.

We can't promise they'll make you as knowledgeable as Bill... but they're a good start.

✍️ A brand new adventure: the Staithes Museum Poetry Competition!

This summer we're trying something we've never done before...

We've launched the very first Staithes Museum Poetry Competition!

The challenge is wonderfully simple: choose one object in the museum and write a poem inspired by it.

It could be a lobster pot, a model of Endeavour, a bonnet, a photograph, a fishing net or even an old clock. Imagine where it's travelled, who used it, what it has seen... or simply what it might say if it could speak.

Don't worry if you don't think you're "a poet". Poems can rhyme... or not rhyme. They can be funny, thoughtful, tiny haikus, dramatic stories or something completely different. If you've got an imagination, you've already got everything you need.

To help get the ideas flowing, we've even created a colourful Poetry Adventure Booklet, packed with quirky prompts, riddles and activities to guide you around the museum. (You might find yourself interviewing a lobster pot or writing a letter from an old photograph...)

There are categories for children and adults, every entrant receives a free museum postcard, and our winning poems will be displayed during the Arts Festival before becoming part of the museum archive - and a winner’s certificate, of course.

So next time you're in the museum, have a look at the objects... they might have been waiting a hundred years for someone to write their poem.

P.S. Keep an eye out on social media for my awkward rhymes! I’ve written some rhyming riddles about museum objects, and you have to guess what I’m talking about. No cheating!

Cowbar in Their Words: One cliff, many voices

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 sacred ground

For the 19th-century Methodist poet John Castillo, Cowbar was not simply scenery, but charged space—where faith, gathering, and landscape collided.

In his account of a Methodist Love Feast held on the summit, he writes:

“From Cowbar’s bright summit that song is aspiring,Jehovah himself now appears to approveTo fan the dim spark in the cottage expiring,Or melt the fierce flame of distraction to love”

Here Cowbar is lifted out of geography and into something almost liturgical—a place where sound carries significance and the cliff itself seems to approve what is happening upon it.

🐚 Stanley Umpleby — Cowbar as edible landscape

By contrast, the dialect poetry of Stanley Umpleby brings Cowbar firmly back down to earth—literally.

In spring, he sees not sermons or skylines, but vegetation and local knowledge:

“Ah leyke ti gan ti Steease i’ springThat’s t’ taam shu allus leeaks ’er best; …An’ t’ silverwhips is oot i’ floo’er”

The cliff becomes a seasonal marker, where the appearance of “silverwhips” signals change, and where knowledge of place is expressed through what grows on it rather than what is built upon it.

🎡 William Francis Verrill — Cowbar as spectator stand

In the early 20th century, William Francis Verrill turns Cowbar into something altogether more boisterous: a viewing platform for village spectacle.

He recalls the races and the crowds gathered below:

“Oh I went down to Staithes the races to seeAnd a man upon Cowbar did standI asked him to point out the race course to meWhich he did with a wave of his hand”

Here Cowbar is not symbolic or botanical—it is practical infrastructure. A place to stand, point, watch, and make sense of organised chaos below.

Laura Knight — Cowbar as a shield

For Dame Laura Knight, Cowbar was much more than a geological feature; it was a "rounded arm" reaching out from the north to create the village’s "chaos of shelter". In her autobiography, Oil Paint and Grease Paint, she describes the cliff as a front-row seat to the terrifying power of the North Sea.

She wrote:

"I stood in the shelter of Cawbor once to watch a house go down and see the blocks of stone tossed into the air like pebbles."

Beyond the drama of the waves, Cowbar also represented a different social world to Knight—the "miners’ cottages at the top of Cawbor". She spent a great deal of time there, famously painting Dressing the Children in one of the cottages, even though she felt a "profound assault" from the poverty and "sordid" late-night noises of the village below. To her, the cliff was a barrier that stood between the "endless drama" of the sea and the "giant child’s box of bricks" that made up the village houses

So what is Cowbar, really?

Is it a signpost, sacred elevation, seasonal instruction or front-row seat to disaster? Taken together, these voices don’t agree on Cowbar—and that is exactly the point. It refuses to settle into one meaning because it is never truly the same place twice.

Laura Knight talked about Cowbar as the "protective arm" of the village, but it is a guardian under siege. Far from being a static monument that "never moves," the cliff is wearing away at an estimated rate of one foot per annum. It is a "Passing Shadow" of sandstone and shale that regularly surrenders tonnes of itself to the waves

Cowbar’s poets aren't just describing a landmark; they are racing against time to document a remarkable survivor. The language keeps changing because the cliff itself is shifting, proving that in Staithes, the only thing more relentless than the sea is the human need to find meaning in the stone before it falls.

Don’t panic! It’s the accreditation visit

We’re about to have what can only be described as a very important visitor coming through the doors: an accreditation visit.

If you’re wondering what that means in plain English, the nearest comparison most people recognise is Ofsted… but for museums. (Although, thankfully, nobody will be inspecting our handwriting or asking us to perform algebra under pressure.)

The visit is part of the Museum Accreditation Scheme, run in the UK by Arts Council England, which is the national benchmark for how museums care for their collections, manage their work, and look after visitors, volunteers, and objects.

In practical terms, the assessor will spend time with us looking at how the museum actually functions day-to-day. That means everything from how we document and care for objects, to how we manage risk, plan for the future, and make sure the collection is properly looked after for generations to come.

There will be questions. There will be paperwork. There will probably be a slightly alarming moment where someone asks where a very specific object  lives, and we all suddenly scramble through the catalogue to see if we can get hold of it, while looking calm and composed, and not at all sweaty. 

To be fair, accreditation is also a positive process. It’s a chance to show how much care goes into the museum behind the scenes—much of which visitors never normally see. The things that keep the lights on, the objects safe, and the stories properly recorded.

Mostly, though, it’s about reassurance: that we’re doing things properly, thoughtfully, and in line with national standards. Or at least that we know where the important folders are and can produce them at short notice.

We’ll keep you updated once we’ve survived it. Preferably with all policies still intact and no one accidentally filed under “miscellaneous”.

📝 What did the trustees get up to?

Wondering what happens at a trustees' meeting? Here's the whirlwind tour...

• 🎨 Captain Cook has had a glow-up! Our newly restored portrait has revealed a ship in the background (which nobody could really see before) and an even more wonderfully stern-looking Captain Cook. We all agreed it deserves to become the Captain Cook portrait people associate with Staithes.

• 👋 The museum has been wonderfully busy! Visitor numbers are looking fantastic this season. We also chatted about ways of taking the museum out into the community, especially to schools and groups who can't easily get to us.

• 🧶 A big thank you to Beth. After many years of running the Museum Crafters, Beth plans to retire from coordinating the group at the end of the year. We'll be looking at how we can continue this much-loved part of the museum.

• 🪲 The battle against the beetles continues... We're still keeping a close eye on active woodworm. One badly-infested map had to be retired (after being digitised first), but on the bright side, humidity in the second shop has improved.

• 💰 The finances are healthy. Like many seasonal attractions, we made a small winter loss (which was expected), but overall the museum remains in a stable position.

• 🎬 Exciting film news! Filming for the new Staithes film takes place at the end of July. It'll be available in the museum, on our website and hopefully ready to be screened at the Arts Festival.

• 🧥 New gansey displays and panels are nearly ready, with interpretation panels due to be installed by the end of June. We've also started exploring whether we can stock knitted gansey hats in the shop...

• 🎣 More fishing heritage is being preserved. We accepted a traditional fishing setting board into the collection as part of plans to document John Cole's longlining skills for future generations.

• 🖼️ New artworks are on the horizon. Plans are underway to commission paintings celebrating Bill Hinchley and Willie Wright, recognising two people who've contributed enormously to preserving Staithes' history.

• 📱 Digital improvements continue. The website refresh, Bloomberg Connects guide and accessibility improvements to our collections catalogue are all moving forward nicely.

• 👻 Yes... we even discussed ghost hunters! A trial paranormal investigation may take place at the museum (subject to landlord approval and insurance, of course). We'll let you know if the ghosts decide to volunteer...

• 🏛️ Looking to the future. We also talked about long-term ambitions, including Cook 300 celebrations, reviving the Captain Cook Trail, and one particularly exciting dream: one day owning the museum building itself.

It keeps volunteers in the loop without drowning them in committee detail, and hopefully gives them a smile along the way.

🎧 Audio Guide Update

Our new audio guide is quietly getting about its business... and people are using it!

So far this month, 53 visitors have used the guide. Most listened in English, but it's been lovely to see a handful of overseas visitors using the automatic translation feature to read our object labels in their own language. Exactly the sort of thing we hoped it would do!

Another interesting statistic: around 10% of users visited the "Plan Your Visit" page before coming to the museum, so the guide is proving useful even before people arrive.

If you haven't had a play with it yourself yet, do have a look – you might discover something new about the museum too! You can find it here: [insert audio guide link].

✍️ From History to Historical Fiction

For the past month, we've been lucky to have Alan with us on work experience.

The original plan was simple enough: research what happened in Staithes during the First and Second World Wars and write a blog post for the museum.

Then something unexpected happened.

While researching the story of the SS Empire Heath, Alan became fascinated by the people behind the history. Instead of simply writing about the events, he wondered what it might have been like to experience them.

So the project changed.

Alan is now writing a piece of historical fiction, following the story of a young German officer whose journey through the war eventually brings him to Staithes. The events, places and historical details are carefully researched, but the story itself is imagined, weaving together the facts in a completely new way.

It's been a brilliant example of how museums can experiment with different ways of interpreting history. Sometimes a traditional article is exactly what's needed. Sometimes a story can help people connect with the past in a way that dates and facts alone never could.

Alan has thrown himself into the project, learning different research techniques, exploring primary sources and asking lots of awkward historical questions (which is exactly what historians should do!).

He's soon to be away to study history at Teesside university... although after reading his work, we wouldn't be at all surprised if he became a novelist instead. We're looking forward to sharing his story with you when it's finished.

🎓 Apprenticeship Update: So... who owns history?

This month's apprenticeship topic has been an absolute can of worms.

Imagine this. A museum has an object that was taken during a war 150 years ago. Should it go back? Probably. But what if the country asking for it didn't even exist when it was made? What if it was made by an enslaved person who was actually from a neighbouring kingdom? What if three different countries all claim it's theirs? What if the people who made it no longer exist? And what if returning it means it disappears into a private store where nobody can ever study or enjoy it again?

Easy answer? Apparently not.

We've spent the month diving head-first into repatriation, decolonisation and museum ethics. I've been reading authors who think museums are guardians of humanity's shared heritage, and others who think museums are little more than beautifully-lit crime scenes.

Then my second question was about caring for collections.  Museums exist to safeguard objects for future generations. It's one of our most important jobs. But... what if we're preserving them so well that we're also stopping them from being what they were meant to be?

Take a fishing net. It was made to be mended, soaked in salt water, dragged over rocks and hauled full of fish. A smock jacket was knitted to keep a fisherman warm. Our little girl’s dress was concealed in a roof to protect the house from bad luck. But once we took it out from under the roof and put it in a museum - it’s not really a concealed dress any more, is it? 

Put our museum objects behind glass, and they'll probably survive for hundreds of years.But they're no longer living objects. Some museums are now asking whether there are times when it's better for an object to continue being used—even if that means it will eventually wear out. Is a boat still a boat if it never leaves dry land? Is a Didgeridoo  happier in a display case than in the hands of a musician? Is a traditional craft best preserved in a cabinet... or by teaching someone to do it?

The more I learn, the more I realise museums aren't really about old objects at all. They're about people, relationships, stories, memory... and occasionally having very polite arguments in lectures about all three.

I'm still not sure I've found the answer to either question. But I do know that the best museum questions are usually the ones that make you uncomfortable enough to keep thinking about them long after you've finished the teams call. 

🖼️ A Very Stern Captain Cook Returns Home

We’ve had a rather exciting delivery at the museum… our eighteenth-century portrait of Captain James Cook has returned from restoration, and it looks absolutely magnificent.

The painting has been transformed. Colours that had dulled over time now have depth and warmth again, and Cook himself seems to have reappeared from the canvas with a rather impressive level of personality. It has quickly become one of the highlights of our Cook gallery.

We already have plenty of engravings and prints of Cook, but this is the first painted likeness we’ve had with quite so much character. Beyond the portrait itself, having such a bright, striking image at the start of the Captain Cook corner really helps to signpost what this part of the museum is about, drawing visitors in and setting the tone for the stories that follow. Visitors are already stopping in this area  longer than usual — partly admiring the craftsmanship, and partly trying to decide whether Cook is judging them.

We especially love his wonderfully stern expression. We like to imagine it captures him during his Third Voyage, when he was reportedly becoming more irritable and uncompromising… though whether the unknown 18th-century artist intended that or just caught him on a bad day is another matter entirely.

Huge thanks go to Paul Carr of Art of Oak for the incredible restoration work. He generously donated both his time and materials, which means the museum can preserve important works like this without dipping into our very modest biscuit budget.

It’s one of those restorations where the skill is almost invisible — which is exactly the point — but we certainly haven’t missed it. We’re extremely grateful for the care, craft, and attention that went into bringing this portrait back to life.

If you’re visiting soon, do come and say hello to Cook. He’s looking sharper than ever.

Looking at Cook: A Deep Dive into the Portraits of James Cook

For over two centuries, the face of Captain James Cook has been an fixture of global history, appearing on everything from coins and stamps to commemorative plaques and statues. In the museum he appears everywhere - from statuettes to sardine tins.  However, for those who seek to find the "real" man behind the navigator, the history of his portraits offers a series of competing and often contradictory identities. As the noted Cook scholar J.C. Beaglehole once admitted, after gazing with intensity at these portraits for years, he felt he had learned remarkably little about the man himself.

The Stern "Poster Boy": Nathaniel Dance (1776)

The most iconic image of Cook is the society painting by Nathaniel Dance, commissioned between his second and third voyages. This portrait presents Cook at the height of his fame, study-bound and studious, STUDYING a chart of the Southern Ocean. Interestingly, his wife, Elizabeth Cook, disliked the painting, finding his expression much too stern, though she admitted it was a reasonable likeness. Despite her reservations, Cook’s contemporary David Samwell claimed it was the only portrait he ever saw that bore a true resemblance to the captain. The painting serves as a theoretical statement on Enlightenment authority, with Cook's hand resting on a map that identifies and "collects" the nations of the Pacific into the European book of knowledge.

The Rugged Introvert: William Hodges (c. 1775–1776)

For over two hundred years, one of the most revealing portraits of Cook was thought to be lost. It was finally rediscovered at a country house auction in Ireland in 1986, where it was identified and eventually purchased by the National Maritime Museum for £700,000. Painted by William Hodges after Cook’s promotion to captain in 1775, this version is notably more modern in its treatment. It strips away the official naval trappings to focus on a rugged, powerful face marked by a distinct hint of introspection and even sadness, quite unlike the "machine-like" competence often attributed to him.

The Professional Scribe: John Webber (Third Voyage)

By the third voyage, John Webber was the official artist on board, tasked with supplying the "unavoidable imperfections of written accounts" through his drawings. Webber was a prolific worker who captured everything from plants and animals to the ceremonies of Indigenous peoples. He painted at least four portraits of Cook, including one at Cape Town in late 1776. Webber's work went far beyond mere likeness; his portraits were intended to be both "faithful and entertaining" for a massive public back in Britain.

Portrait as a Sacred Relic

One of the quirkiest chapters in the history of these images involves a portrait Webber painted of Cook in 1777 and left with the chiefs of Tahiti. In 1790, thirteen years after Cook departed, the Tahitians held a ritual ceremony for the picture. They uncovered their shoulders as a mark of respect, made a long speech acknowledging Cook as the "Chief of Matavai," and presented the image with a young plantain tree and a sucking pig. To the islanders, the portrait was not just a picture, but a manifestation of sacred power.

The Martyr Myth: The Death of Cook

The most widely reproduced image of the captain is Webber’s "The Death of Captain Cook," a studio reconstruction of the 1779 events at Kealakekua Bay. Although Webber did not witness the tragedy, his painting cemented the myth of the "martyred humanist". It depicts Cook in a self-sacrificial gesture, waving his hand to stop his marines from firing on the Hawaiians—a detail added to portray him as a "victim to his own humanity". This ennoblement reached its peak in the engraving The Apotheosis of Captain Cook, which shows him being drawn up to heaven by Britannia and Fame, notably clutching a sextant instead of a sword.

Today, these portraits are being viewed through a new lens. While they once represented a "noble project" of exploration, they are now often re-evaluated today as a symbol of "the fatal impact" that brought pathogens, guns, and dispossession to the Pacific. Whether seen as a "peerless navigator" or an "emblematic invader," Cook’s many faces continue to frame our understanding of the complicated legacy of empire.

At last… from floor pile to bookshelf!

There’s been a quiet but very satisfying upgrade in the office: we now have a couple of new bookshelves, meaning Stephen’s long-planned library organisation can finally get to a finished point!

This might not sound dramatic, but for Stephen it’s a bit of a dream come true. He has always wanted the books—especially the tall, lovely, slightly intimidating special volumes—to be reachable and properly accessible, rather than stacked in hopeful but impractical piles under the tables. As ever, space had other ideas. Until now.

With the new shelving in place, everything can finally sit where it belongs: within reach, in order, and looking like a real working library rather than an archaeological dig in progress.

Huge thanks go to Colin for getting the shelves lined up beautifully—and, more importantly, sturdily enough that I am genuinely comfortable sitting underneath them while writing this, even with several weighty volumes on Captain James Cook resting above my head.

It’s a small change in furniture, but a big change in function. Stephen’s books can finally be used as intended, rather than admired from a distance with a sign that says PLEASE do not touch.