Our Plans for the Future

The Project

The Windermere Steamboat Museum is one of the most significant cultural projects in the North West of England. It will secure the future of the Windermere Steamboat Museum and the Museum’s nationally significant historic boat collection and re-open the Museum to the public. We want to do this by building new museum-quality facilities on the site of the old museum to create a world-class heritage attraction beside Windermere.

The outstanding significance of the project was recognised when it was one of only five national projects to receive a first round pass and development funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund in May 2011, the only one that year outside the South East. In March 2013 the Trust applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a confirmed grant. Importantly, the Museum will support the economic and social well being of the area, creating year-round employment and enabling an estimated 94 direct and indirect jobs to be created and safeguarded. In total the project involves investment in Cumbria of £13.4m.

The Museum has the strategic support of the key agencies in Cumbria including the Lake District National Park, Cumbria Tourism, Cumbria County Council, South Lakeland District Council and Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership.
Funding from a number of organisations, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Rural Development Programme for England and the Government's Regional Growth Fund as well as trusts, foundations and individual donors has enabled the Lakeland Arts Trust to develop the project to this stage.

The Trust secured planning approval for the Museum in June 2013.

The Collection

The 40 boats in the Museum’s collection form the most important and coherent collection of watercraft generic to one location anywhere in the world. Martyn Heighton, Director, National Historic Ships, says: ‘Nowhere in the world is there anything to equal the stunning collection of Lakeland Vessels which the Pattinson family brought together on the shores of Windermere. This is one of the most exciting maritime projects in Great Britain.’

The Museum’s collection is a highly significant part of the UK’s dispersed boat and maritime collection and National Historic Ships lists 11 boats in the collection as nationally pre-eminent and four are members of the elite National Historic Fleet. The best known part of the collection is the ten classic Windermere steam launches of the 1890s and 1900s. Other highlights include SL Dolly (1850) the oldest mechanically powered boat in the world, SY Esperance (1869) built for steel magnate Henry Schneider and inspiration for Captain Flint’s houseboat in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, Canfly (1922) powered by a 1917 Rolls Royce aero engine, and, in stark contrast, Beatrix Potter’s tarn boat that she used to sketch in on Moss Eccles Tarn.

The New Museum

The Museum will create a distinctive, excellent visitor experience and include:
• Wet dock, slipway and jetties so that visitors can see and experience boats on the lake;
• Collection displays where visitors can discover about the people who built the boats, who used them and how they were used, and learn about the science and technology of boat design, steam and marine engines and the ecology of the lake and site;
• A publicly viewable conservation workshop where visitors will be able to watch the conservation and restoration of the boats using traditional boatbuilding and engineering techniques, and where trainees, apprentices, young people and volunteers will develop new skills and experience;
• A multifunction activity and learning space to support formal and informal learning programmes that involve people of all ages, schools, colleges and community groups in the Museum;
• Public access to the beautiful and environmentally important seven acre site beside Lake Windermere with stunning views to the Lakeland Fells and 250 metres of lake shore;
• Excellent visitor facilities including a café with exceptional views over the lake and Museum shop.

In parallel with the capital project, the Trust has developed the detailed conservation management plan for the collection. Some boats will be restored to carry passengers or for demonstration, whilst others, too historic or fragile to be returned to the water, will remain on dry display. The Trust has innovative and exciting plans to involve local people and visitors in the Museum through a broad range of activities for children and young people, families and older people as well as schools, colleges and community groups. We have consulted widely as we have developed the project and used this to inform design development and the themes that we will explore in the Museum.