Sir Max Aitken Museum

Museum

Explorer Tom

The Sir Max Aitken Museum occupies The Prospect, the pink building on Cowes High Street, and announces maritime history with a piece of timber that seems to have forgotten when to stop. That is Britannia's 51-foot gaff, once part of the royal racing yacht, and it stretches across a room stuffed with seafaring stories. This was an eighteenth-century sailmaker's loft for Ratsey & Lapthorn before Sir Max acquired and restored it in 1947. His collection mixes yacht models, navigation gear, paintings and objects from famous ships. From Britannia come a tiller, a chair, rigging and other fittings; nearby is a painting of HMS Victory at Trafalgar, along with a letter signed by Nelson. If you came expecting three glass cases and a polite label, think again. There are smaller, stranger treasures too: a sailor's nineteenth-century Valentine pin cushion and a finely worked box made by a French prisoner of war. A French Empire cradle is reputed to have been intended for Napoleon's son; the museum wisely presents that as a story attached to the object, not a certainty you must salute. Sir Max set up a charitable trust in 1979 to keep his collection open to the public, and the place still has the feel of one person's enthusiastically crowded room. The museum gives its visitor season as May to September, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm, with free admission at 83 High Street. It also says there is no disabled access, so check before setting out. Go when the doors are open, look up at that enormous gaff, and decide whether your own sitting room is perhaps a little under-rigged.

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Sir Max Aitken Museum hall · Photo: Sir Max Aitken Museum (photographer unstated) · Reuse rights not stated on source page

What is recorded here

Map note: Near Cowes, Isle of Wight, England, the map records Sir Max Aitken Museum as a museum. See what else is around it before planning your day.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) n4858527712