Museums with Geological displays

We are very lucky to have some superb museums within, and local to, the Leeds District. Many of these have excellent geology collections, some being among the best in the country, and all are well worth a visit.

Cliffe Castle Museum – Located in Keighley, Cliff Castle Museum was completed in the 1880s, the museum building was the home of Henry Issac Butterfield, a Victorian millionaire and textile manufacture and converted into a museum in the 1950s by Sir Bracewell Smith. As well as the Victorian architecture and furniture and artwork of the rooms the museum houses a range of exhibits, including natural history, archaeology, social history and an internationally important display of stained glass by Morris and Co. The geology exhibit has the reputation of being one of the best in the UK.
Craven Museum – The museum is located in Skipton Town Hall. It has a long and varied history, starting in 1862 when the building was constructed. The museum has over 60,000 exhibits covering social, economic and natural history which tell the story of the area, as well as a range of varying events and group activities.
Grassington Folk Museum – Situated in Grassington, the museum has its roots in the need to display a large-scale relief map of a 19th century tithe map made by the Upper Wharfedale Museum Society in 1975, ultimately ending up in the current museum building which was probably two miners cottages. The museum holds a broad array of exhibits highlighting every facet of lift in the area, including farming, medicine, domestic life, work and play. The geology exhibit covers the rich history of lead mining in the area and includes an array of geological specimens, including gold panned from the River Wharfe!
Leeds City Museum – Located in Leeds city centre, the museum has a wide array of exhibits covering the history of Leeds, as well as further afield, ranging from life on Earth, a history of collecting in Leeds, Asian culture, the story of Leeds and ancient worlds.
National Coal Mining Museum – The National Coal Mining Museum, located south west of Horbury, Wakefield is based at Caphouse Colliery. Coal mining has been carried out here for centuries, with evidence of mining at the site beginning in 1791 and ending in 1985 when coal reserves were exhausted. In 1988 the museum opened and was granted national museum status in 1995. Visitors can learn about coal mining, its history in Yorkshire and the UK and go down the mine, as miners used to, in what is likely to be the oldest operating mine shaft in the UK!
Rotunda Museum – The Rotunda Museum is located in Scarborough and was opened in 1829 and was one of the first purpose built museums in the world. The building was built based on design suggestions by the internationally famous “Father of Geology” William Smith. The beautiful museum hosts a fantastic geology and fossil collection as well as other examples of natural history and archaeology.
Whitby Museum – Founded in January 1823, the museum is located in Whitby and is owned and operated by Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society. There are a wide and diverse range of exhibits covering Whitby’s rich social and maritime history, natural history, textiles and geology. Its geology collection contains one of the finest collections of Jurassic fossils in the UK, as well as examples of fossils from the famous Kirkdale Cave and a collection detailing the history of one of Whitby’s most famous products, jet.
Tolson Museum – In 1832 part of the estate surrounding Ravensknowle Road was bought by Thomas Wilson, a Huddersfield Banker. The estate was subsequently bought in 1850 by his nephew, John Beaumont who built Ravensknowle Hall (now the museum) between 1859-1862. The hall remained in the same family until 1919 when the owner, Legh Tolson gifted the hall and part of the grounds to the Huddersfield Corporation as a memorial to his nephews who were killed during World War I. The hall became the Tolson Memorial Museum, leading to a long and rich history as an education establishment. The museum has a wide range of artifacts covering the history of Huddersfield, archaeology, art and natural history, which includes an excellent geological collection.

Please visit each museum’s website for further details on the museum.