100 years of Whitby Community College

Students and staff of Whitby Community College have been working hard putting together an exhibition to celebrate its 100 year history. The exhibition opens Friday evening and will be open during usual museum hours (admission charge apply)


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Location:Whitby Museum

A glimpse of a Maori cloak

Today I have been looking at the Museum register of objects to answer a query about some Maori cloaks in the museum collection. I thought it would be nice to show a glimpse of the decorative edge of one of these beautiful and fragile objects



The cloak is made of flax fibres and the colour produced using natural local dyes. it is not possible to display the cloaks at the spent time and this photograph was taken during one of the regular checks made on items in store.

Location:Whitby Museum

A glimpse of a Maori cloak

Today I have been looking at the Museum register of objects to answer a query about some Maori cloaks in the museum collection. I thought it would be nice to show a glimpse of the decorative edge of one of these beautiful and fragile objects



The cloak is made of flax fibres and the colour produced using natural local dyes. it is not possible to display the cloaks at the spent time and this photograph was taken during one of the regular checks made on items in store.

Location:Whitby Museum

Bram Stoker's holiday

A new exhibition about Bram Stoker opens in the Museum on April 2nd. He wrote the book Dracula (published in 1897) and included in three chapters of this book, considerable details about Whitby he gleaned whilst here on holiday in August 1890.

20th April 2012 sees the centenary of Bram Stoker’s death


Our exhibition on Bram Stoker incorporates the results of exciting new research by members of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society. Some research was done by Lit & Phil members in late 2011 that identified some hitherto unrecognised aspects of Stoker’s book. This was worthy of further effort and a team of researchers was gathered that took the work to a much more detailed level. All of the published work on the subject deals with Stoker’s Whitby aspects in variable but superficial detail that is often speculative and often inaccurate. Our work now reveals considerable new information as well as examining and exploring the influences upon Stoker while in Whitby as well as the basis for some of the characters.

Sailors' sixpence

The exhibition " Sailors' Sixpence : the lives of Whitby seamen revealed through the Muster Rolls " was officially opened yesterday by Captain S. L. Gamble, Master Warden, Trinity House, Hull.

These Muster Rolls are crew lists from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and are now beginning to reveal the lives of Whitby seamen, telling tales of wars and trade, national events and personal tragedies.
In this exhibition, you can explore the history of these muster rolls, find out about their national importance, and learn about the conservation that will preserve their future.





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Location:Whitby Museum

Good luck for the New Year

In Japanese, the Seven Gods of Luck are called Shichifukujin 「七福神」, from shichi 七 = seven, fuku 福 = happiness, good fortune and kami, jin 神 = god. The museum has a beautiful representation of Takarabune. In the ship are Fukurokuju (God of happiness, wisdom, longevity, virility and fertility), Hotei (God of happiness, satisfaction and abundance), Juroujin (God of longevity) and in the second row Bishamonten (God of war and warriors), Ebisu (God of good fortune, commerce and honest work), Benzaiten (Goddess of arts and knowledge) and Daikokuten (God of wealth and prosperity).

The  Museum will re-open on Tuesday 3rd January 2012. Please note that the café is closed from the end of November until mid-February.

Happy New Year! あけましておめでとう！

Mary's shoes

Today I have been a participant in a workshop run by local artist Serena Patridge and called 'Mary's shoes'. It was run to link in with the current exhibition in the Pannett Art Gallery, exploring the lives and art work of the Weatherill family, who were 19th Century Whitby artists.  Serena makes beautiful and intricate pieces of work with imagined histories and she demonstrated how to construct tiny shoes in paper and card. 

We all then made our own versions using the pretty papers and trimmings Serena had provided.

This is one of a series of events organised by the Pannett Art Gallery to link into the current exhibition.  There will be childrens Drama Workshops on 18th, 23rd, 25th, 30th August and 1st September (all starting at 1.30pm) and suitable for children between 8 and 11 years.  They will explore the lives of the people in the Weatherill paintings.  To book a place please telephone 01947602051.  There will also be a drop in day on Friday 26th August suitable for all ages exploring the lives and work of Whitby Women during the 1800-1900s and looking in particular at Ganseys and rag rugs.