Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre
📍 45 Eastborough, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 1NH
About Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre
Description
Our aim is to educate the public about Scarborough’s fascinating history. Focusing on our maritime heritage but also on the life and growth of the town. We have a changing exhibition area and a large archive and library of local history. We have been running since 2009 and have gained many awards, including the Queen’s Award for volunteering. We do talks and outreach work in schools and community groups alongside answering many family and local history enquiries. We are run entirely by volunteers and public donations.
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📍 45 Eastborough, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 1NH
from 73 reviews
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Showing 5 of 73 reviews from Google Maps.Last updated 5 February 2026.
Stopped here on our way to beach and met the lovely male volunteer who spent half hour going through all the displays with us, the museum is small but free and filled with information, also has a library below. Thank you for the lovely experience.
This was a fascinating heritage centre to visit, mostly focused on the history of ships in Scarborough! The lifeboats are shown and old naval ships, with the stories of their significance across decades in the town such as naval ones. Objects are also shown that were used to help the travellers on the ships and also ones they had for storage, the history of cricket is touched on furthermore!
The place isn't really an attraction in the same vein of a maritime musuem. It's a small compact shop of different artifacts. There's some books in the lower portion of the shop.
Having given notice by email on the morning of my visit that I wanted to research HMS Scarborough's visit to the town in June 1971, when I was a Royal Navy cadet, the three volunteers hadn't been passed my request by whoever answered. To be frank, the information about the ship was pretty sparse, which totally surprised me. It appears that nobody has ever thought to spend some time gathering what must be a wealth of data on the town's namesake ship which last visited in 1972, shortly before being scrapped. Where is the casket in which the freedom of the town was contained? Nobody knew. Did they know that the final Captain, Wilfred Graham, went on to command two HMS Ark Royal's ago, starring in the BBC TV series, 'Sailor'? Or that he went on to become director of the RNLI. Not only did they not know, they seemed remarkably disinterested. All very disappointing.
An excellent small volunteer-run museum with interesting exhibits and stories from Scarborough's past. The volunteers are very friendly, knowledgeable and keen to help. It's free but you can leave a donation by cash or card which will help them to get a bigger premises where they can show even more of Scarborough's historic treasures.