Dartmouth Museum

Dartmouth Museum is a small, fascinating and interesting museum housed in an atmospheric old merchant's house, built in approximately 1640.

The Museum houses an extensive collection of artefacts, models, paintings and photographs which can help you explore and develop your interests, whether they be in maritime history, the social and economic history of the town of Dartmouth, or the physical changes to the town over the past centuries.

From the moment you walk through the door you will be transported into the past life of this wonderful town, and begin to understand more about the strong link between the people of the town and the sea.

It's a great day out for a wet day or a dry one.

The Henley Study

The Henley Room, designed to be interactive and child-friendly, provides an insight into the world of Victorian and Edwardian Dartmouth. Can you find our Erotic Coconut, the Coco de Mer, as presented to William and Kate in the Seychelles in 2011?

The King's Room

It was in this magnificent room that King Charles II was entertained in July 1671, when storms forced him to seek shelter in Dartmouth. The unique and beautiful ceiling and wooden panelling are original and just as the King would have seen them!

The Holdsworth Room

In the Holdsworth Room you can learn more about the lives, at home and at work, during peace time and at war, of the people of Dartmouth. See period costumes, household artefacts and toys belonging to old Dartmothians.

Tree of Jesse & reserve items

Like most museums we are unable to show all the items we hold. These are currently stored in the Jesse Room named after its unique plaster ceiling portraying the “Tree of Jesse” from Matthew Chapter 1. Believed to be the only example of this depiction now in existence. The pattern of scrolls emerging from the reclining figure of Jesse holding a skull embraces rows of little figures ending with the mother of Jesus with the babe in her arms.