About
Newarke Houses Museum occupies two beautifully preserved historic houses in Leicester's historic Newarke district - Chantry House (built around 1511) and Skeffington House (16th century) - telling the intimate story of Leicester life and social history from medieval times through the modern era. The buildings themselves, with their exposed timber beams, Tudor details, and period architectural features, provide atmospheric settings that transport visitors through 500 years of domestic life.
The museum's name derives from the 'New Work' - a medieval extension to Leicester built in the 14th century to house the collegiate Church of the Annunciation of St Mary, founded by Henry of Grosmont. Though the church was destroyed during the Reformation, the Newarke area retained its historic character, and these Tudor houses survived as rare examples of Leicester's pre-industrial domestic architecture. Chantry House served various purposes including a school, while Skeffington House housed wealthy merchants and professional families. Their preservation provides tangible connections to how Leicester's citizens lived centuries before industrial transformation.
Newarke Houses Museum specializes in social history - the everyday lives of ordinary Leicester people rather than kings, battles, or great events. Room settings recreate Victorian parlours, Edwardian bedrooms, and mid-20th-century living rooms with authentic period furnishings, showing how domestic interiors evolved with changing fashions, technologies, and social expectations. Costume collections spanning 200 years document changing fashion from Georgian gowns through Victorian crinolines to 1960s miniskirts. The museum holds extensive collections relating to Leicester's Royal Leicestershire Regiment (now displayed alongside social history), connecting military service to family and community life.
With free admission, intimate period room settings that contrast dramatically with modern living, and collections that emphasize personal stories and everyday experiences, Newarke Houses Museum provides essential context for understanding how Leicester's people lived, worked, raised families, and adapted to dramatic social changes across five centuries.
Categories:
Annual Visitors (2019)
30,000
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Busiest: Saturday, Sunday
💡 Weekday afternoons (13:00-15:00) for quietest viewing with good natural light in the period rooms
💡 Visitor Tips
- Visit on weekday afternoons (13:00-15:00) for the quietest experience with good natural light illuminating the period rooms and costume displays. Weekends attract more family visitors.
- The museum occupies two Tudor buildings with narrow staircases and upper floors - those with mobility concerns should inquire about ground-floor accessibility before visiting. Not all galleries are wheelchair accessible.
- Combine with nearby New Walk Museum (5 minutes walk) for a full day of Leicester museums. Both are free and complement each other - New Walk covers art and natural history, Newarke Houses social history.
- The period room settings create powerful contrasts with modern life - take time to imagine actually living in these spaces without central heating, electricity, or modern conveniences to appreciate how dramatically life changed.
- Costume displays rotate periodically to preserve delicate textiles, so returning visitors often encounter different garments. If particularly interested in costume history, check which pieces are currently displayed.
- Photography allowed for personal use (no flash) to protect historic textiles and costumes. The Tudor rooms and period settings photograph beautifully, capturing the atmospheric historic architecture.
- The museum has no café, but New Walk Museum and De Montfort University campus cafés are within 5 minutes walk. Consider planning lunch between exploring these connected Leicester museums.
- Special living history events occasionally feature costumed interpreters demonstrating Victorian domestic skills, Tudor crafts, or wartime life. Check website for event schedules that bring social history vividly to life.
Highlights
The Tudor Houses and Architecture
The two connected Tudor buildings - Chantry House (c. 1511) and Skeffington House (16th century) - represent rare surviving examples of Leicester's pre-industrial domestic architecture. Chantry House features exposed timber-frame construction, original oak beams, Tudor fireplaces, and small leaded windows characteristic of early 16th-century merchant housing.
Skeffington House displays slightly later Tudor features reflecting evolving architectural fashions. Walking through these atmospheric spaces, with their low ceilings, creaking floorboards, uneven walls, and intimate room sizes, provides vivid contrast with modern housing and demonstrates how the wealthy lived 500 years ago.
The buildings survived Leicester's Victorian and modern redevelopment, preserving architectural details rarely seen elsewhere in the city.
For visitors interested in historic architecture and Tudor life, the buildings themselves function as exhibits demonstrating construction techniques, room layouts, heating methods, and the physical realities of pre-modern domestic life.
Period Room Settings (Victorian-Modern)
Carefully recreated domestic interiors spanning 150 years show how Leicester homes evolved from Victorian times through the modern era. The Victorian parlour features horsehair sofas, ornate wallpaper, decorative knickknacks, oil lamps, and the cluttered aesthetic that defined middle-class respectability.
The Edwardian bedroom displays lighter decoration, early electrical fittings, and the emerging emphasis on hygiene and ventilation.
The 1930s living room introduces art deco influences, modern furniture, radio entertainment, and vacuum cleaners signaling domestic technology transformation. The 1950s kitchen features early electric appliances, Formica surfaces, and the bright optimistic aesthetic of post-war modernity. These immersive settings use authentic period furnishings, wallpapers, carpets, and household objects to demonstrate how technology, fashion, social expectations, and economic conditions shaped domestic life.
For older visitors, the 20th-century rooms trigger powerful memories, while younger generations discover how recently people lived without central heating, computers, or mobile phones.
Costume Collection (18th-20th Century)
Extensive collections documenting 200 years of fashion evolution from Georgian elegance through Victorian propriety to 20th-century social revolution. The displays feature complete outfits including undergarments, shoes, accessories, and jewelry, showing not just what people wore but how clothing reflected social status, gender expectations, and historical change.
Georgian gowns demonstrate 18th-century elegance and expensive materials signaling wealth.
Victorian crinolines and corsets reveal how fashion restricted women's movement and reflected moral ideals. Edwardian 'hobble skirts' show fashion could be absurdly impractical. 1920s flapper dresses mark women's social liberation following World War I.
1960s miniskirts and psychedelic patterns reflect youth culture rebellion. The collection emphasizes Leicester-made garments where possible, connecting to the city's important textile and hosiery industries. Costume displays rotate regularly to preserve delicate fabrics, ensuring returning visitors encounter different pieces.
Royal Leicestershire Regiment Collection
Military history collection documenting the Royal Leicestershire Regiment's service from 1688 through 1964, emphasizing personal stories and connections to Leicester families rather than battles and tactics alone. Uniforms, medals, photographs, letters, and personal effects humanize military service, showing how generations of Leicester men (and some women in support roles) served in conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars through both World Wars to post-war operations.
The displays explain how military service affected families left behind, how communities supported troops, and how veterans reintegrated after service.
Objects include campaign medals, dress uniforms, regimental colors, weapons, and poignant personal items like letters home and wartime sweethearts' photographs. This collection connects military history to Leicester's social fabric, showing how wars shaped community life, economy, and memory across generations.
Collections
Newarke Houses Museum specializes in Leicester social history - documenting ordinary people's lives rather than high politics or great events. Collections span domestic life, costume and fashion, childhood and toys, working life and industries, military service (Royal Leicestershire Regiment), and horology.
The buildings themselves - Chantry House (c.
1511) and Skeffington House (16th century) - function as exhibits demonstrating Tudor architecture and domestic life. Period room settings recreate Victorian, Edwardian, and mid-20th-century interiors with authentic furnishings. Costume collections span 18th-20th centuries, emphasizing Leicester-made garments where possible.
Military collections emphasize personal stories connecting service to family and community. The emphasis throughout is intimate, personal, and local - how Leicester people lived, dressed, worked, raised families, and adapted to social change across five centuries.
Domestic Life Through Five Centuries
Period room settings and domestic object collections showing how Leicester homes evolved from Tudor times through the modern era. The exhibition uses the Tudor buildings' authentic architecture as backdrop for recreated Victorian, Edwardian, 1930s, and 1950s interiors furnished with period-appropriate objects.
Displays examine heating, lighting, cooking, cleaning, entertainment, and daily routines, demonstrating how technology and social change transformed domestic life.
The contrast between Tudor timber-frame architecture and 20th-century modern conveniences creates powerful temporal dissonance, emphasizing how dramatically life changed across these centuries.
📍 Throughout both buildings
Fashion and Costume Collection
Comprehensive costume displays documenting 200 years of fashion evolution with emphasis on Leicester-made garments. The exhibition explores not just changing styles but how clothing reflected social status, gender expectations, occupations, and historical events.
Complete outfits including undergarments, accessories, and jewelry show the full reality of historical dress.
Interpretation emphasizes Leicester's important textile and hosiery industries, connecting fashion to local economic history. Rotating displays ensure textile conservation while providing variety for returning visitors.
📍 Costume Galleries
The Royal Leicestershire Regiment
Military history collection documenting the regiment's service from 1688-1964, emphasizing connections to Leicester families and communities. Uniforms, medals, photographs, letters, and personal effects humanize military service beyond battles and campaigns. The displays connect military history to social history - how wars affected families, communities, and Leicester's economy across generations.
The exhibition balances honoring service with acknowledging war's human costs and complexities.
📍 Ground Floor
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.