About
Guisborough Museum occupies three adjoining rooms in the old stable block behind Sunnyfield House, and it covers a town whose history divides neatly into two halves: a medieval priory borough at the northern edge of the North York Moors, and a nineteenth-century centre of the Cleveland ironstone industry that for a few decades supplied a large share of Britain's iron ore.
The priory came first. Gisborough Priory, founded in the early twelfth century by Robert de Brus, was one of the wealthiest Augustinian houses in the north, and its ruined east end still stands a few minutes from the museum. The market town that grew around it kept its shape after the Dissolution, and the museum's earlier material covers the priory, the market charter, the parish church, the surrounding agriculture and the moorland economy of sheep, alum and jet that the district lived on before iron.
The ironstone changed everything. From the middle of the nineteenth century the Cleveland Hills were worked intensively for ironstone, feeding the blast furnaces of Teesside and turning a string of quiet villages into mining settlements almost overnight. The museum records the mines, the drifts and shafts, the miners and their families, the housing, the chapels, the accidents, the unions and the long closure that followed as the ore ran out and cheaper imports arrived. It is the story that shaped most families in the district and it is told here with the specificity that only a local collection can manage.
Alongside this the museum covers the railways that served the mines, the town's shops and trades, both world wars, and the social life of a place that has been by turns monastic, agricultural, industrial and residential. It is free, open on Thursdays and Saturdays through a season from April to the end of October, run entirely by volunteers, and accessible throughout with ramps and level access. The archives next door in Sunnyfield House hold a further large body of photographs and records.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The season runs 2 April to 31 October, and the museum opens on Thursdays and Saturdays only.
- Entry is free and the whole museum is step-free with ramps - unusually good access for a small volunteer museum.
- Combine with Gisborough Priory, a four-minute walk away; the museum explains what the ruin was.
- Note the spelling difference: Guisborough the town, Gisborough the priory. Both are correct.
- Ask the volunteers about the ironstone mines - most local families have a connection to them.
- Researchers should contact the Sunnyfield House archives in advance; they hold far more than is on display.
- There is no museum car park; use the town-centre car parks off Westgate.
- Roseberry Topping and the moors are a short drive away if you want to see the country the mines were dug into.
Highlights
The Cleveland ironstone industry
From the 1850s the Cleveland Hills were mined intensively for ironstone, and for several decades the district supplied a large share of the ore feeding Teesside's furnaces and, through them, a significant part of British iron production. The museum records the mines and drifts, the tools, lamps and equipment, the miners' housing and chapels, the accidents that were routine, and the trade unions that grew in response.
It also covers the collapse: as the workable ore was exhausted and imported ore proved cheaper, mine after mine closed, leaving villages without the reason they had been built.
Gisborough Priory
Founded in the early twelfth century by Robert de Brus, Gisborough Priory became one of the wealthiest Augustinian houses in northern England, and the great east window of its church still stands as a ruin a few minutes from the museum.
The displays cover the priory's foundation and endowment, its estates and their management, the fire of 1289 and the rebuilding that followed, the Dissolution and the dispersal of its property. Note the spelling: the priory is Gisborough and the town Guisborough, a genuine local distinction that is not a misprint and should not be corrected.
The market town
Guisborough's wide Westgate and market place preserve the shape of a planned medieval borough, and the museum documents the market and fairs, the trades and shops, the inns and the town's role as the commercial centre for a wide moorland district. Photographs, directories and objects trace the same streets across a century and a half, including the buildings lost to twentieth-century redevelopment.
This material is what most local visitors come for, and the volunteers' knowledge of who kept which shop when is a substantial part of the museum's value.
Jet, alum and moorland industries
Before ironstone, the district lived partly on other extractive trades. Whitby jet, worked into mourning jewellery that became a Victorian craze, was found in this coast and moorland; alum, essential to dyeing and tanning, was quarried and processed along the Cleveland coast in one of the earliest large-scale chemical industries in the country.
The museum covers both, along with sheep farming and the moorland economy that carried the district between the Dissolution and the coming of iron, giving a fuller picture than the mining story alone provides.
Collections
Guisborough Museum holds the local collections of the town and the east Cleveland district in three rooms of the old stable block behind Sunnyfield House. Material covers Gisborough Priory and the medieval borough, the market town and its trades, the moorland economy of sheep, jet and alum, and above all the Cleveland ironstone industry from the 1850s onwards - mines and drifts, tools, lamps, miners' housing, chapels, accidents, unions and closures - together with the railways built to serve the mines.
Later holdings document the shops and streets of the town, both world wars at local scale, and twentieth-century social life.
The adjoining Sunnyfield House archives hold a much larger body of photographs and records.
Priory and Borough
Gisborough Priory, the Brus family, and the medieval market town that grew around it.
Ironstone
The Cleveland ironstone mines, the people who worked them, and the industry's rise and collapse.
The Town
Shops, trades, schools, chapels and the two world wars in Guisborough.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.