Ryedale Folk Museum

This year we are celebrating our 50th Anniversary, to do this we are running special 50th Anniversary events each month in 2014 alongside our normal events programme. The events are based on themes which represent our core values, and which we continue to champion. About us… Ryedale Folk Museum was created by local people out of a passion for their heritage and we have and always will be committed to being a part of the community we inhabit. The Museum began when Wilfred Crosland and his sisters occupied the house and barn that now form the entrance to the Museum. His many interests included collecting old farm implements and craft tools, which he stored and displayed in the barn. After WWII, as Wilfred’s interest became ever more widely known, local people gave more objects; eventually whole buildings came along. Local, Bert Frank, collaborated with practical help and advice, and became the first full-time curator when the Museum officially opened in 1964. It w...

To celebrate 50 years we are working on gathering photographs from our visitors of their trip to the museum. So no matter how long ago your visit was please send your captured memory to emma@ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk with permission to put it on our website and declaration that you own the copyright

1964-2014 As we celebrate our 50th year we thought it only right to tell you a bit about how we first began... We first opened in 1964 and have a long tradition of rescuing and preserving Ryedale's heritage but we would not be here today if it wasn't for the work of three particularly inspiring men; Wilfred Crosland, Bertram Frank and Raymond Hayes. All three lived in the village of Hutton-le-Hole, the museum's picturesque location, and rather that just despairing at the continued loss of buildings, objects and traditions from across the Ryedale region, they decided to actually do something about it! Wilfred Crosland (1876 - 1961) Wilfred lived in the cottage that now forms the museum's main office and gift shop. He was highly regarded as a local historian and antiquary, fathering the idea of a Ryedale museum in Hutton-le-Hole. It was after his death in 1961 that his sisters, Helen and Minnie, asked Bert Frank to take over his museum room. Bertram Frank (1919 - 1996) Th...