About
St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery is Lymington's dedicated cultural centre, occupying a prominent position in the heart of this Georgian market town and yachting harbour on the western edge of the New Forest. Since opening in 1992, the museum has served as the primary repository for the history, heritage, and artistic traditions of Lymington and the surrounding area — a region of remarkable richness encompassing ancient salt marshes, a historic port, smuggling traditions, and some of the finest sailing waters on the Hampshire coast.
The museum takes its name from John St Barbe, a local benefactor from one of the prominent families of the Lymington area, whose support was instrumental in establishing the institution. The collections span many centuries of local history, with particular strengths in the industries and activities that defined Lymington's character before it became the prosperous yachting town it is today.
Chief among these is Lymington's remarkable salt-making heritage. For centuries, Lymington was one of England's most important salt-producing towns, its marshes criss-crossed with evaporation pans and its economy sustained by the lucrative trade in sea salt. At the industry's peak in the eighteenth century, Lymington was producing vast quantities of salt for the domestic market and for export, and the landscape of the surrounding salt marshes still bears the physical imprint of this lost industry. The museum's displays on salt production are among the most authoritative treatments of this often-overlooked industrial heritage anywhere in southern England.
Maritime history is another core strand of the collections, reflecting Lymington's long identity as a working port. The town's connections to the Solent, the Isle of Wight ferry crossing, smuggling, and the leisure sailing culture that transformed it in the Victorian era are all explored through maps, models, photographs, and objects. The art gallery programme brings a contemporary cultural dimension, presenting regular temporary exhibitions by local and regional artists alongside the permanent collections, making St Barbe a dynamic year-round cultural destination.
Categories:
Highlights
Lymington Salt-Making Heritage
Lymington was for centuries one of England's foremost salt-producing towns, its surrounding marshes transformed into a vast industrial landscape of evaporation pans, salt houses, and drainage channels. At the peak of production in the eighteenth century, the town's salt pans stretched across much of the coastal marshland and employed a significant part of the local workforce.
St Barbe's displays on the salt industry are among the most authoritative in southern England, using maps, equipment, documents, and landscape photography to reconstruct this largely vanished industry and its profound impact on the town's economy and identity.
Lymington Maritime Collections
Lymington's long history as a working port on the western Solent is explored through a rich collection of maritime objects, charts, ships' models, and photographs. The town served as a significant harbour for coastal trade, fishing, and ferry traffic — the ferry crossing to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight has ancient origins.
The collections trace Lymington's transformation from a commercial port to one of England's premier yachting centres, a transition that began in the Victorian era and accelerated through the twentieth century, making the town synonymous with sailing on the Solent.
Smuggling History of the New Forest Coast
The remote marshes, creeks, and woodland paths of the New Forest coastline made the Lymington area a hotbed of smuggling activity throughout the eighteenth century. Gangs of free-traders, as smugglers preferred to call themselves, ran cargoes of brandy, tea, tobacco, and silk across the Solent under cover of darkness, evading the Revenue men who patrolled the coast.
St Barbe's smuggling displays capture this colourful and dangerous history with vivid storytelling, maps of known routes and hiding places, and objects associated with the trade — bringing to life a world of organised crime that touched virtually every community on this stretch of coast.
Lymington as a Georgian Town
Lymington retains one of the finest Georgian streetscapes in Hampshire, and St Barbe's collections illuminate the social and commercial life of the town during its Georgian heyday. Maps, prints, paintings, and documentary records show how Lymington functioned as a prosperous market town, attracting wealthy residents and visitors who were drawn by its fashionable assemblies, coaching connections, and access to the New Forest.
The museum captures the life of the Georgian town — its merchants, craftsmen, professional classes, and servants — with an engaging blend of objects and social history narrative.
Collections
Lymington Through the Ages
Permanent local history galleries covering Lymington's development from a medieval market town and port through its Georgian heyday, Victorian yachting transformation, and into the modern era
Salt Town
Dedicated displays on Lymington's centuries-long role as one of England's major salt-producing towns, with maps, equipment, and social history
Smugglers and Free-Traders
Exhibition on the thriving smuggling culture of the New Forest coast during the eighteenth century
Maritime Lymington
Collections documenting Lymington's history as a working port and its evolution into a leading yachting centre on the western Solent
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.