Keswick Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Keswick Museum is a local museum based in Keswick in the English Lake District, which exhibits aspects of the landscape, history and culture of the area.
 Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in 2011 | |
  Keswick Museum Location in the Lake District National Park, England | |
| Established | 1873 |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 54.6031°N 3.1329°W |
| Website | keswickmuseum |
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.[1] 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.[1]
The collection moved to purpose-built facilities, in Fitz Park, constructed as a memorial to the Hewetson brothers, distinguished Keswick benefactors, in 1897.[1] Cannon Hardwicke Rawnsley, one of founders of the National Trust, attended the opening of the art gallery at the museum, in 1906.[2]
The Fitz Park Trust got into financial difficulties and the collection was rescued by Allerdale Council in April 1994.[3] 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.[4]
The building was extensively refurbished, with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund,[5] at a cost of £2.1 million between September 2012 and May 2014.[6][7]
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, the museum now only collects items from the Derwent Seven Parishes, approximately the CA12 postcode area.[8]
The collection includes artifacts from Keswick's landscape, history and culture[9] as well as the three-dimensional model made by Joseph and James Flintoft.[1] It also includes The Musical Stones of Skiddaw, a number of lithophones built across two centuries around the town of Keswick using hornfels, a stone from the nearby Skiddaw mountain, which is said to have a superior tone and longer ring than the more commonly used slate.[10] Other items in the collection include a 700-year-old cat (found mummified within the wall of a church at Clifton near Penrith), a penny-farthing bicycle and a man-trap.[11]
The Hugh Walpole Collection includes manuscripts of all the Herries novels by Hugh Walpole (four novels set in the Lake District) and letters to Walpole from 13 leading English writers.[12]
The Mountain Heritage Trust maintains a changing exhibition in the museum: in 2018/19 "Man and Mountain" featured Chris Bonington,[13] and in 2019/20 it focused on Siegfried Herford.[14]
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