About
Whittlesey Museum documents the history of a distinctive Cambridgeshire Fenland town whose two great claims to fame are its formidable brickmaking heritage and its remarkable Straw Bear festival — one of the most celebrated revived folk customs in England. Located in the heart of the small market town between Peterborough and March, the volunteer-run museum holds rich collections relating to local agriculture, brickmaking, the Fenland landscape, and the cultural life of one of the most distinctive Fenland communities.
The Fenland clay around Whittlesey supported a brickmaking industry of extraordinary scale through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The London Brick Company's vast complex at Whittlesey and the neighbouring villages produced billions of bricks that were transported by rail across England — the Fletton brick, made from the local Oxford Clay, became the standard building material of suburban interwar England. The towering brickwork chimneys that once dominated the skyline (most now demolished) shaped the landscape and the working life of Whittlesey for generations. The museum holds equipment, photographs, and personal accounts documenting this industry and the communities it sustained.
Whittlesey's other extraordinary tradition is the Straw Bear festival, held annually in January. The original custom — in which a man covered head to foot in straw was led through the streets to bring good luck — died out in the early twentieth century but was revived in 1980 by local enthusiasts. It has since grown into one of England's most celebrated folk events, with morris and molly dancing teams converging on the town for a weekend of dancing, music, and the ceremonial burning of the Straw Bear costume. The festival has helped revive interest in East Anglian folk traditions more broadly.
The museum also documents the agricultural history of the surrounding Fenland — drained from the seventeenth century onwards by Cornelius Vermuyden's engineers and transformed into intensive arable land — and the social history of the town through schools, chapels, trades, and personal collections. Whittlesey retains a distinctive Fenland character and the museum captures this through the personal scale of its displays and the warmth of its volunteer welcome.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- If you can plan your visit for January, the Straw Bear festival weekend is a unique experience — book accommodation well in advance as the town is busy.
- Check opening days carefully — the museum is volunteer-run and currently open only Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon.
- Combine your visit with Peterborough Cathedral six miles away for a full day of Cambridgeshire heritage.
- Flag Fen Archaeology Park is nearby and provides an extraordinary window onto Bronze Age life in the Fens.
- The Nene Valley Railway runs heritage steam services on the nearby line — check timetables for combined heritage days.
- Whittlesey railway station is on the Liverpool Street-to-Birmingham line, making the town accessible by train.
- The museum is free but donations support the volunteer running of this independent local museum.
- Park in the market square (free short-stay) and walk the short distance to the museum.
Highlights
The Straw Bear Festival
Whittlesey's most distinctive cultural inheritance is the Straw Bear — a ceremony in which a man covered head to foot in straw is led through the town to bring good luck. The original custom died out in the early twentieth century but was revived in 1980 and has grown into one of England's most celebrated folk events, drawing morris and molly dancing teams from across the country each January.
The museum holds straw bear costumes, photographs from the revival and contemporary festivals, and material on related East Anglian folk customs.
The Straw Bear has become a symbol of Whittlesey's distinctive identity.
The Brickmaking Industry
The Oxford Clay around Whittlesey supported one of the largest brickmaking industries in the world. The London Brick Company's complex of works at Whittlesey produced billions of Fletton bricks — the standard building material of interwar suburban England. The museum documents this industry through equipment, brick samples, photographs of the enormous chimneys that once dominated the skyline, and personal accounts from the brickyard workers and their families.
The industry employed thousands at its peak and shaped the social as well as the physical landscape of Whittlesey for more than a century.
Drainage of the Fens
Like the rest of Fenland Cambridgeshire, the land around Whittlesey was systematically drained from the seventeenth century onwards by Cornelius Vermuyden and the Bedford Level corporation. The museum documents this transformation through maps, prints, and interpretive material — the cutting of the rivers, the construction of pumping windmills (later steam engines), the gradual reclamation of intensive arable land, and the opposition of Fenland commoners whose traditional way of life was destroyed.
The story of Whittlesey is inseparable from this dramatic remaking of the landscape.
Whittlesey Market Place
Whittlesey retains an attractive market square with a distinctive Buttercross at its centre — a small octagonal market structure typical of small East Anglian market towns. The museum documents the history of the town's markets, the trading patterns that linked Whittlesey to the surrounding Fenland villages, and the social life that centred on market days.
Photographs and trade directories illustrate the changing character of the town through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Collections
Whittlesey Museum holds approximately 5,000 objects, documents, and photographs relating to the town and surrounding Fenland communities. The brickmaking collections are nationally significant — including equipment, brick samples, and photographic records of the great London Brick Company complex. Straw Bear festival material documents both the historical custom and its modern revival, with costumes, programmes, and photographs from each year's festival.
Social history collections cover Fenland agriculture, trades, schools, chapels, and community life. Material relating to Sir Harry Smith and the Smith family provides a particular point of interest. The photographic archive is extensive and includes donations from many local families.
Whittlesey: A Fenland Town
Chronological display tracing the history of Whittlesey from medieval origins through industrial development to the present.
📍 Main Gallery
The Straw Bear Tradition
Display dedicated to the Straw Bear festival, its historical origins, suppression in 1909, and revival in 1980.
📍 Folk Customs Gallery
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.