Helena Thompson Museum
Workington's
local history museum
For further information, please visit the Helena Thompson
museum website.
The Museum
The building in which the museum is housed was
originally known as Park End House. It was left to the people of
Workington in 1940 by Helena Thompson, a local philanthropist whose
family had been connected to the building from the late 18th
century. In her latter years Helena gave away much of her inherited
wealth to charitable causes, improving the town's amenities and in
founding a maternity ward in Workington Infirmary. In order to form
the basis of a museum collection Helena bequeathed the contents of
her home, which had been described a few years before her death as
one of the loveliest in Workington. In line with Helena's wishes
for the museum to be a meeting place for local women, the museum is
still used today by groups of local lace makers and women's groups
who meet and exhibit regularly.
The Museum is split
into five permanent galleries with an additional Exhibition Hall
for temporary exhibitions. The five galleries are the Costume
Gallery, the Victorian room, The Georgian Room, the Curwen Room and
the Long Gallery.
These rooms carry examples of period furniture and costumes,
drawings by Helena Thompson, maritime models and a display on local
social history.
Two of the most impressive objects in the collection
are the large scale model of Workington Hall, the historic seat of
the Curwen family, and The Clifton Dish.
"The Clifton Dish, which was made in the first half of the 18th
century and gives clues to the links between West Cumbria and the
Staffordshire potteries"
The Collection
The original collection at the Helena Thompson Museum reflects
the interests of the family, and their way of life in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and certain subjects in which
Miss Helena Thompson was particularly interested. The collection
consisted of costume and textiles; antiques and curios; family
possessions; portraits and domestic chattels dating from the second
half of the eighteenth century. The collection has grown over the
ensuing years particularly in the last decade with a broadening of
the scope to include particularly local trades, industries, and
domestic and commercial life in the later nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. A significant photographic collection has been acquired
and is currently being catalogued, a large part of this collection
is available for the public to view and purchase prints.
Workington Heritage Trust
The museum is run by a team of staff and volunteers working for
our partner organisation the Workington Heritage Trust. They have
day to day responsibility for the running and the care of both the
building and the collection.