Dales Countryside Museum Centre Museums

The Dales Countryside Museum brings alive the history of the Yorkshire Dales. This award-winning museum, managed by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, is housed in an exciting and imaginative conversion of the Hawes railway station. The museum is designed to be fully accessible for wheelchair users.

Watch out for the lead miner! Imagine the damp and the dark as you step into our recreated lead mine.

Discover the time tunnel and come face to face with a Norman invader.

Learn how to get a woolly sock from a woolly sheep!

The Dales Countryside Museum explores how our ancestors survived in the beautiful, but sometimes harsh, environment of the Yorkshire Dales. Interactive exhibits, exciting displays, video and CD-Rom bring alive the story of the Yorkshire Dales and the people that have lived in this unique landscape.

The museum has several galleries, the largest one being in the Victorian goods shed that once housed the goods waiting for collection by the steam engines of the Midland railway.

This building has been converted into a fascinating exhibition hall that details life in the rural villages of Yorkshire at the turn of the century.

Adjoining the goods shed exhibition hall is the purpose-built museum which houses a gift shop and information centre, public toilets, education & study rooms, an outside amphitheatre and the John Baker Exhibition Hall.

The Museum's time tunnel will then take you onto the platform of the old station, where a series of railway carriages house the video viewing room and artefacts from Dales life throughout the centuries.

After visiting the museum, why not explore the traditional market town of Hawes situated right on the Museum's doorstep?

Hawes has lots of shops, high-quality food outlets, cafes and public houses to enjoy, all surrounded by the beautiful countryside of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Hawe's attractions include the Wensleydale Creamery, home to the fabulous cheese loved by those fun characters, Wallace and Gromit, and The Ropemakers where can see the workrooms of this traditional industry. There are also a variety of art and craft workshops in the immediate and surrounding area. .