Museum of North Craven Life, Independent museum in Settle, United Kingdom
The Museum of North Craven Life is housed in The Folly, a protected building dating from 1679, located in Settle. Four permanent exhibitions cover different periods and aspects of local heritage and daily life in the region.
The museum was established in 1976 by the Settle and District Civic Society with playwright Alan Bennett as its founding chairman. Its collections focus on regional history from earliest times through the railway era and beyond.
The exhibitions display objects from different periods of local life, including prehistoric tools and artifacts connected to the construction of the famous railway line. Visitors can see how people in this region worked and lived across centuries.
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday and welcomes visitors to explore all four exhibitions at their own pace. A coffee house and shop selling local crafts are available during opening hours.
The Folly building had an unusually varied past, serving as a farm, boarding house, furniture warehouse, medical office, holiday rental, and fish shop before becoming a museum. This layered history reveals how versatile such buildings were in meeting community needs.
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