Grace Darling Museum, Bamburgh, Northumberland

If you arrive in Bamburgh on a winter's afternoon, well out of the tourist season, you have to take it as you find it: quiet, the guest houses empty and dark, a slight mist creeping into the dark shadows, which a low sun throws behind the gravestones in St Aidan's churchyard.

Over it all looms the great castle on its rock and below it the North Sea lies calm and restful - or so you think, until you notice the great waves that relentlessly hammer the beaches below.

Grace Darling, the Christian girl (as she is described on the sign by her monument inside the church) who famously helped save people from the ss Forfarshire in a storm in 1838, is buried in the churchyard, just a short distance from the house where she was born in 1815 and not far from the house where she died in 1842, at the age of 27.

Grace Darling, born in what is still a remote corner of England, found herself a heroine in her own lifetime. As often happened with others in the 19th century, her belongings and anything associated with her were collected and kept, as souvenirs or even as pseudo-religious relics.

Locks of her hair (quite a lot of it) and even the very boat in which she and her father saved nine lives off the sinking steamship were preserved.

There was more than enough to fill a museum, and for a long time Bamburgh boasted a small, informal museum to her, owned by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and staffed by volunteers.

A couple of years ago the museum closed for refurbishment. Now part of a portfolio of five museums (plus an archive) run by the RNLI's Heritage Trust and funded independently of the lifesaving activities, the museum has undergone a complete transformation. With a larger footprint than its predecessor, the museum is now housed in a modern building.

Inside, volunteer staff immediately and professionally greet you and tell you how to operate the video equipment, which sets you off on your journey of discovery and reinterpretation of Grace Darling. Discretely but very deliberately, the new video stresses the part played by women in the modern RNLI and the courage they display.

The fact that there is an RNLI collection box nearby is entirely appropriate: the RNLI is a charity, devoted to saving lives. Admission to the museum is free: the visitor's hand should reach for any cash available.

You know that you are in the hands of clever museum professionals here who have worked for years with designers, architects and interpreters to create a truly excellent example of what the modern British museum sector has to offer. The building is of the highest quality, well furnished, finely lit and thoughtfully laid out.

Clear labelling

You enter from the shop area into a foyer with stairs and a glass lift to the first floor. Here, the theme is set with objects salvaged from the Forfarshire. The main gallery is circular, inspired by the shape of the lighthouse where Grace Darling lived and where she and her father, William, set out to save the nine lives.

Grace's father is usually left out of the legend but the RNLI's Heritage Trust has reinterpreted and represented the history, giving the visitor new and unexpected insights into not only the story, but also the social and natural environment in which it took place.

The predominant colour is white, which allows showcases and drawers to attract the visitor's attention. The showcases are thematically arranged, devoted to Grace and her family, 19th-century life and transport. The links to the national curriculum are there, but the display is not simply geared to educational visits.

The RNLI has cleverly and thoroughly restored the best - and most interesting - objects in the collection so that the visitor can move between levels of experience thematically; showcase by showcase; or you can graze, moving from object to object.

The cases are crowded, but well laid out and clearly labelled, and because there are so many, even the relatively small main gallery rewards a longer stay and will also attract repeat visits.

The boat used in the rescue is displayed in the deepest recess of the museum and the visitor can start the screening of a short audiovisual presentation above the dark wooden hull, providing atmosphere and drama as it tells the story of the stormy night in 1838 when William and his daughter Grace went lifesaving.

Displaying a boat in this way is not easy: visitors are in a small room - probably too small and intimate - with a big dark boat, showcases behind them and paintings down the stern end showing how artists have portrayed the heroic events over the years.

A large space and a widescreen presentation with loud sound effects recreating the roaring sea would have been more dramatic but was obviously not an option here.

An asset to the area

Upstairs, the education room contains a reconstruction of the bow of the boat so that you can sit where Grace herself probably sat with her oars. It upends to become a storyteller's chair: yet another delightful detail.

Outside the education room is a showcase full of Grace Darling souvenirs and memorabilia, a reminder of how Grace became an industry almost immediately her story became known. A picture window gives you a panoramic view of St Aidan's and the memorial to Grace with the ocean and, in the distance, Holy Island.

The window is well placed and as you leave this little museum, you are reminded how central this small town on the coast and north-east England are to British and European history. From the outside, the window spoils the architectural lines of the building but the architect has had the courage to design this part of the building inside-out, as it were, and sacrificed aesthetics a little to functionality.

This museum really is a gem. It is a fine resource as a museum, as part of the education system and as an addition to the panoply of visitor attractions in this region.

Hans Christian Andersen is a cultural tourism lecturer at the Newcastle Business School