Windermere Jetty Museum

Windermere Jetty Museum is located by the lakeside on Rayrigg Road, Bowness-on-Windermere. The museum includes a working jetty with heritage boat trips. Further, covered jetties give the opportunity to get up close to a collection of motorboats, steam launches, sailing yachts and record-breaking speed boats. There are also interactive exhibitions of Windermere’s 200-year-old boating history.

The museum originally opened in 1977 as the Windermere Steamboat Museum on the former Sand and Gravel Wharf on the eastern shore of Windermere. It featured the collection built up by George Pattinson, a local builder and boat collector. In 2007, the museum was taken over by the Lakeland Arts Trust. The museum was closed whilst the site was redeveloped, adding a series of new buildings to house the boats and a conservation workshop where they would be restored and maintained. The museum was reopened under its new name Windermere Jetty: Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories, in March 2019, with an official opening ceremony on 8th April 2019 attended by HRH Prince Charles.