The Swaledale Museum is now open for the Season! We are open everyday except Saturdays 10 am to 5 pm. Look out for our new bright red leaflets. We have reorganised the Museum for easier access, and our upper floor can now be used for groups. We can accommodate up to 50, and welcome schools and clubs. There are activity and quiz boxes, come and try your hand at our selection of vintage card games, or work out what a range of ‘contraptions’ are used for! Thanks to three young visitors we made our ‘Spot the Spectacles’ challenge even more difficult this year.

Our handsome end-over-end butter churn has been loaned to Hazel Brow Farm in Low Row where it can be seen amongst a wide range of butter making equipment. Michael Kusz is keeping a range of our tinsmithing tools in working order. Go and visit him at the Dales Centre, in Silver Street Reeth and see his wonderful workshop and Jo the Crow. You will be amazed at what he can turn sheets of recycled copper into! Scenicview Gallery have beeen busy keeping our Website up to date, with the addition of a new calendar which you can see under Forthcoming Events on this site. Thanks to Debbie and Graham we also have some splendid new information panels, including: Swaledale Sheep; Swaledale Cheese and the Farming Year drawn from Mr Peacock's diaries which have been donated, by the daughter of the founder of the Museum. More are on the way!

With the help of the Upper Dales Family History Group we are researching a smart red Yorkshire Volunteers Rifle Regiment uniform that belonged to a Thomas Hammond - which will be the focus of May Friends of the Museum talk at Fremington. We have been able to piece together the biography of its owner which will preface the main talk by Lynda Powell, Director of the Green Howards Museum in Richmond. We have several wonderful new acquisitions, including a beautiful green and red quilt from Arkengarthdale, made in 1898 to celebrate a marriage; a set of diaries from CBYard Arkengarthdale 1927-1937; some tailoring tools and a brass lead bullet mould. At the moment we are organising a visit to the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition in Durham, watch our Forthcoming Events section. We have already taken bookings for the Archive Day and Magic Lantern Slide Show in June!

For more information and booking contact Helen Bainbridge, Swaledale Museum, Reeth, North Yorkshire DL11 6QT 01748 884118 e-mail museum.swaledale@btinternet.com, see website www.swaledalemuseum.org