Where
The Museum of Witchcraft is located in the village of Boscastle on the rugged Atlantic coast of North Cornwall. It is open from 1 April until Halloween every year.
What
“We are what it says on the tin,” says Graham King, who took over as director and curator in 1996 at midnight on Halloween. Before he joined, King was a camera manufacturer for the National Archives with a layman’s interest in folklore. The museum is in an old fisheries building on the harbour.
Opened
Cecil Williamson first put the collection on display in 1951 on the Isle of Man, and titled it as a “Folklore Centre”. “People had some problems with the w-word,” says King. The collection moved to Boscastle in 1961 and took its current name.
Collection
With scold’s bridles, a large library and artefacts such as herbs and poppet dolls fashioned in the likenesses of people, the museum houses “the world’s largest collection of artefacts connected with witchcraft, folklore and magic”, says King. Displays look at images of witchcraft, persecution, goddess worship and the links between magic and religion.
“We have some wax limbs typical of the type that are placed in Catholic churches around the world. Catholic visitors to the museum have been very interested,” King says.
One artefact at the museum is a stone, known “for reasons, you might imagine, as the ‘cock rock’”, he says. “It was donated to us by a lovely old Devon lady. She told us that you were meant to put it under your pillow at night to encourage fertility.”
Highlights
King says the collection has a strong bias towards folk magic and the magic practised by wise women and cunning folk, but it also has displays covering a wide range of magical subjects.
“One display shows how the image of the witch has been used in a surprising number of advertising campaigns, including one for women’s underwear in the 1920s,” King says. He also mentions the Dutch Richel collection, “a huge collection of drawings, paintings and works related to ritual and magic”.
Help at hand
The museum is run by King, with an assistant and a historian. There is a lot of help from volunteers and students. The museum has some 220 Friends.
A lot of the museum’s income is generated from its admission fee (£4). “We’re proud that the museum has now run for 60 years without any grants. We are one of the few completely independent museums in the country that is commercially successful.”
Sticky moment
In 2004 the museum was at the centre of a national emergency – the Boscastle floods in which buildings were washed away and more than 100 cars were swept out to sea by a torrent that rushed through the village. King, who is also a coastguard, raised the alarm that started the rescue operation.
The museum’s ground floor was covered with tons of sewage-infested mud and the weight of the water caused most of its internal walls to collapse. The museum also has a problem with “nasty mail” from people who disapprove of witchcraft.
Survival tip
“Do not operate a museum in a steep-sided valley by a river,” says King. He also stresses the importance of running your museum as a business.
Visitors
30,000 in 2010.
Future plans
“We fight a constant battle against humidity and are trying to find some better dehumidifiers,” King says. The museum and its volunteers also continue the “never-ending process of scanning archive documents to keep the online catalogue as up to date as possible”. The museum’s website is a popular resource and the staff are proud that much of its material is fully catalogued and online.
www.museumofwitcwhcraft.com
The Museum of Witchcraft is located in the village of Boscastle on the rugged Atlantic coast of North Cornwall. It is open from 1 April until Halloween every year.
What
“We are what it says on the tin,” says Graham King, who took over as director and curator in 1996 at midnight on Halloween. Before he joined, King was a camera manufacturer for the National Archives with a layman’s interest in folklore. The museum is in an old fisheries building on the harbour.
Opened
Cecil Williamson first put the collection on display in 1951 on the Isle of Man, and titled it as a “Folklore Centre”. “People had some problems with the w-word,” says King. The collection moved to Boscastle in 1961 and took its current name.
Collection
With scold’s bridles, a large library and artefacts such as herbs and poppet dolls fashioned in the likenesses of people, the museum houses “the world’s largest collection of artefacts connected with witchcraft, folklore and magic”, says King. Displays look at images of witchcraft, persecution, goddess worship and the links between magic and religion.
“We have some wax limbs typical of the type that are placed in Catholic churches around the world. Catholic visitors to the museum have been very interested,” King says.
One artefact at the museum is a stone, known “for reasons, you might imagine, as the ‘cock rock’”, he says. “It was donated to us by a lovely old Devon lady. She told us that you were meant to put it under your pillow at night to encourage fertility.”
Highlights
King says the collection has a strong bias towards folk magic and the magic practised by wise women and cunning folk, but it also has displays covering a wide range of magical subjects.
“One display shows how the image of the witch has been used in a surprising number of advertising campaigns, including one for women’s underwear in the 1920s,” King says. He also mentions the Dutch Richel collection, “a huge collection of drawings, paintings and works related to ritual and magic”.
Help at hand
The museum is run by King, with an assistant and a historian. There is a lot of help from volunteers and students. The museum has some 220 Friends.
A lot of the museum’s income is generated from its admission fee (£4). “We’re proud that the museum has now run for 60 years without any grants. We are one of the few completely independent museums in the country that is commercially successful.”
Sticky moment
In 2004 the museum was at the centre of a national emergency – the Boscastle floods in which buildings were washed away and more than 100 cars were swept out to sea by a torrent that rushed through the village. King, who is also a coastguard, raised the alarm that started the rescue operation.
The museum’s ground floor was covered with tons of sewage-infested mud and the weight of the water caused most of its internal walls to collapse. The museum also has a problem with “nasty mail” from people who disapprove of witchcraft.
Survival tip
“Do not operate a museum in a steep-sided valley by a river,” says King. He also stresses the importance of running your museum as a business.
Visitors
30,000 in 2010.
Future plans
“We fight a constant battle against humidity and are trying to find some better dehumidifiers,” King says. The museum and its volunteers also continue the “never-ending process of scanning archive documents to keep the online catalogue as up to date as possible”. The museum’s website is a popular resource and the staff are proud that much of its material is fully catalogued and online.
www.museumofwitcwhcraft.com