Whitby Museum & Pannett Park
About
An independent museum run by the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society, set in a park on the West Side, and the best single answer to a wet Whitby afternoon. It is an old-fashioned museum in the good sense: cases of Jurassic fossils dug out of the local cliffs, jet and jet-working tools, whaling material from the town's Greenland trade, ship models, and a collection of local curiosities that no modern museum would have the nerve to display. Pannett Park around it is a proper Edwardian public park with an art gallery, and it is open all hours whether or not the museum is. Closed on Mondays.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓Early Jurassic fossils collected from the local coast
- ✓Whitby jet and the tools of the Victorian jet trade
- ✓Material from the town's Greenland whaling years
- ✓Pannett Park itself, free and open regardless of museum hours
Tips
- →Closed Mondays. Broadly 10:00 to 16:30 Tuesday to Sunday; confirm on the museum's own site, since an independent museum's hours move.
- →It is a ten-minute uphill walk from the station through the park, which is pleasant in itself.
- →The fossil and jet cases are the part that connects directly to what you will see in the Church Street shops.
Best Season
More Attraction Activities
Whitby Abbey
The medieval abbey ruin on the East Cliff, with an English Heritage museum covering Hild, Caedmon and the Dracula connection.
The 199 Steps
The grade I listed Church Stairs from Church Street up to St Mary's, in use since at least 1370, with coffin-rest platforms on the way.
St Mary's Church
The clifftop parish church at the top of the steps, with an extraordinary unrestored interior of white box pews fitted by ships' carpenters.