Museum

We are proud of our accredited museum status.  Our museum focuses on 3 areas:

• Sir John Moore, our founder, his life including business interests, public roles and philanthropy
• Our building, its design as a purpose built school opening in 1697, and its place within the history of education
• The local history of the rural village of Appleby Magna and its environs

The top floor of the building, originally dormitories for pupil boarders, features 3 rooms curated to show a Headmaster's study, a classroom and a dormitory as they might have been in 1891.  On this floor there is also the original 17th clock mechanism and a view of the cupula which housed the original bell.  There is also a gallery with a changing exhibition.

The museum has a ground floor accessible gallery which also has changing displays and is a meeting room for talks, group activities and research.  

We welcome visitors but, apart from open days, these must be pre-booked.  Contact Sally Lowe, Museum Manager, via sally.lowe@sirjohnmoore.org.uk or on 07789 238945.  Group bookings are available at £5 per person, to include a presentation with refreshments, a tour of museum and other features of interest in the building and grounds.

The museum welcomes volunteers who help with the management of the museum, undertake research, develop displays and support community activities.  Please get in touch if you would like to know more.

Currently our main community activity is a Local History Café Extended group.  Projects undertaken by this group have so far focused on local history, including a leaflet detailing a walk around Appleby Magna with a focus on social history.  When the museum was closed, due to Covid 19 restrictions, the group developed temporary heritage boards that were put up around the village and this has led to two permanent ones to be erected in 2022.  Full details and downloads can be found on the local history café page. 

As well as material held by the museum, those interested in Appleby history have a wonderful resource in an archived website created by local residents.  This can be found at http://www.applebymagna.org.uk/appleby_history/

Details of our museum collection can be found here. We also have a growing collection of digital images online.  We are delighted to be a participant in The Earth Museum's East Midlands project.  This has allowed us to tell the story of items in our collection and how they relate to places both local and global.  You can find our selected items here.

To find out more about The Earth Museum listen to an interview with its founder Janet Owen by SJMF volunteer Andy Moore.  This is one of a series of podcasts produced by Andy.  Details of the others will be available on the Local History Café page.

                                                           

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