This list of museums in Cambridgeshire, England contains museums which are defined for this context as institutions (including nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private businesses) that collect and care for objects of cultural, artistic, scientific, or historical interest and make their collections or related exhibits available for public viewing. Also included are non-profit art galleries and university art galleries. Museums that exist only in cyberspace (i.e., virtual museums) are not included.
Name | Image | Town/City | Type | Summary |
---|---|---|---|---|
Anglesey Abbey, Gardens and Lode Mill | Lode | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 1930s period house featuring a collection of rare clocks, gardens, and working flour mill | |
Blacked-Out Britain War Museum | Huntingdon | History | information, everyday life in Britain during World War II | |
Bourn Windmll | Bourn | Mill | website, open trestle post mill | |
Burghley House | Peterborough | Historic house | Grand 16th-century country house with gardens, collections of fine and decorative arts | |
Burwell Museum | Burwell | History | Themed building exhibits include agriculture, period rooms and household items, military life, blacksmith's shop, a Roman pottery, a Victorian school room, vintage vehicles, carts, farm equipment | |
Cambridge Museum of Technology | Cambridge | Technology | Located in an original sewage pumping station, includes equipment, information and artefacts from local industries | |
Cambridge Science Centre | Cambridge | Science | Hands-on science exhibitions, workshops, shows and talks | |
Cambridge University Library | Cambridge | Library | Changing exhibits of art, history and culture from its collections, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Cambridge University Museum of Zoology | Cambridge | Natural history | Specimens of fossil and living animals, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Centre for Computing History | Cambridge | Computer | Technology and the social, cultural and historical impact of the computing revolution | |
Chatteris Museum | Chatteris | Local | website, local history, culture | |
Cromwell Museum | Huntingdon | Biographical | Life of 17th century English military and political leader Oliver Cromwell | |
Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey | Waterbeach | Multiple | Agriculture, local history, and historic abbey dating to the 12th century | |
Elton Hall | Elton | Historic house | Baronial hall and gardens on a 3,800-acre (15 km2) estate | |
Ely Museum | Ely | Local | website, area history, culture, natural history, located in the Bishop's gaol | |
Fenland & West Norfolk Aviation Museum | Wisbech | Aviation | website, military aviation, including the World War II, the Falklands conflict and Desert Storm | |
Fitzwilliam Museum | Cambridge | Art | Includes fine art, coins, Egyptian collections, antiquities, Near-Eastern and Asian art and artefacts, decorative art, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Flag Fen Bronze Age Centre and Archaeology Park | Peterborough | Archaeology | Open air reconstruction and finds from a Bronze Age settlement | |
Hinchingbrooke House | Huntingdon | Historic house | Tudor country house, ancestral home of the Cromwell and Sandwich families | |
Houghton Mill | Houghton | Mill | Operated by the National Trust, restored water mill | |
Imperial War Museum Duxford | Duxford | Aviation | Military aircraft, military vehicles, artillery and minor naval vessels | |
Kettle's Yard | Cambridge | Art | Gallery of 20th century and 21st century art, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Kimbolton Castle | Kimbolton | Historic house | Final home of King Henry VIII's first queen, Catherine of Aragon, open for tours on a very limited basis | |
Lawrence Room | Cambridge | Archaeology | website, artefacts of Anglo-Saxon, Egyptian and Classical Mediterranean origin, at Girton College, Cambridge, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Longthorpe Tower | Longthorpe | Historic house | 14th century, three-story tower featuring mediæval wall paintings | |
The Manor (Cambridgeshire) | Hemingford Grey | Historic house | One of the oldest continuously inhabited houses in Britain, made famous as the house of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston | |
March and District Museum | March | Local | Local history, culture | |
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | Cambridge | Multiple | Archaeology and anthropology artefacts from England, Ancient Rome, Africa, the Pacific, and great works of African, Asian, and native American sculpture, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Museum of Cambridge | Cambridge | Local | Local history and culture, period room displays, artefacts of everyday life, formerly the Cambridge and County Folk Museum | |
Museum of Classical Archaeology | Cambridge | Art | Plaster casts of Greek & Roman sculpture, part of the University of Cambridge | |
New Hall Art Collection | Cambridge | Art | Works by women artists, part of Murray Edwards College, a women's college of University of Cambridge | |
Norris Museum, Cambridgeshire | St Ives | Local | website, local history, culture | |
Octavia Hill's Birthplace House | Wisbech | Biographical | website, home of 19th century British social reformer Octavia Hill, co-founder of the National Trust | |
Oliver Cromwell's House | Ely | Biographical | website, home of Oliver Cromwell, also tourist office. | |
Peckover House & Garden | Wisbech | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, Georgian merchant's townhouse with Victorian walled garden | |
People's Portraits Exhibition | Cambridge | Art | website, long term exhibition of portraits of ordinary people from all walks of life created by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, at Girton College, Cambridge, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Peterborough Museum | Peterborough | Multiple | Local history, art, archaeology, natural history, Jurassic fossils | |
Prickwillow Museum | Prickwillow | Technology | website History of the changing landscape of the Fens and the principles of drainage which created it, features restored diesel engines in a former pumping station | |
Railworld | Peterborough | Railway | Sustainable transport, model trains, railway locomotives, memorabilia | |
Ramsey Rural Museum CIO | Ramsey | History | website, history of rural Fenland life, period rooms and businesses, agriculture, trades | |
Rupert Brooke Museum | Grantchester | Biographical | website, life and works of poet Rupert Brooke, located adjacent to The Orchard tea garden | |
Ruskin Gallery | Cambridge | Art | Part of Anglia Ruskin University | |
The Polar Museum | Cambridge | Science | Part of the University of Cambridge, history and science of explorations of the Arctic and Antarctic | |
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences | Cambridge | Natural history | Geology, rocks, minerals, fossils, part of the University of Cambridge | |
St Neots Museum | St Neots | Local | Local history, culture, prison cells | |
Stained Glass Museum | Ely | Art | Historic and contemporary stained glass, located in Ely Cathedral | |
Stretham Old Engine | Stretham | Technology | Working steam engine | |
Taggart Gallery and Museum | Great Staughton | Art | Shop with museum featuring historic decorative tiles | |
Thorney Heritage Museum | Thorney | Local | website, local history, culture | |
Tower Museum Bassingbourn | Royston | Military | History of RAF Bassingbourn during World War II | |
Waterbeach Military Heritage Museum | Waterbeach | Military | (Note: currently closed) History of RAF Waterbeach until 1966 and of Waterbeach Barracks | |
Whipple Museum of the History of Science | Cambridge | Science | Historic scientific instruments and items about the history of science, part of the University of Cambridge | |
Whittlesey Museum | Whittlesey | Local | Local history, culture | |
Wimpole Hall | Wimpole | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, opulent mansion, gardens and grounds | |
Wimpole Home Farm | Arrington | Agriculture | Operated by the National Trust, 18th century working farm | |
Wisbech Castle | Wisbech | Historic House | Regency villa (built by Joseph Medworth) and grounds operated by Wisbech Town Council. | |
Wisbech & Fenland Museum | Wisbech | Multiple | Local history and culture, natural history, decorative arts | |
Wysing Arts Centre | Bourn | Art | Contemporary arts centre | |
Cambridgeshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East of England government statistical region, and popularly known as one of the three counties of East Anglia. The largest city is Peterborough, followed by the county town of Cambridge. In 1974, modern Cambridgeshire was created through the amalgamation of Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely with Huntingdon and Peterborough, which including the historic counties of Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough. A majority of the county is locally governed by Cambridgeshire County Council in combination with the lower tier non-metropolitan district councils of Cambridge, East Cambridgeshire, Fenland, Huntingdonshire, and South Cambridgeshire. Peterborough however is governed as a unitary authority with one council, Peterborough City Council. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west.
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a national museum with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of the United Kingdom and its Empire during the First World War. The museum's remit has since expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914. As of 2012, the museum aims "to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and 'wartime experience'."
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery houses the historical and art collections of the city of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, England. Managed by Vivacity on behalf of the city council, it is part of the Greater Fens Museum Partnership.
Family Group is a sculpture by Henry Moore. It was his first large-scale bronze sculpture, and his first large bronze with multiple castings. Made for Barclay School in Stevenage, it evolved from drawings in the 1930s, through a series of models to bronze castings in 1950–51. It also one of the last important sculptures that Moore developed from preliminary drawings: in future, he worked mainly from found objects, maquettes and models.
Gigi Crompton (1922-2020) was an American-British art conservator, botanist and author. She restored paintings for the Fogg Museum at Harvard in the USA and National and Walker art galleries in Britain. She later became involved with botany and plant conservation and compiled the Catalogue of Cambridgeshire Flora Records since 1538.