The museum was opened in 1972 in the old Kingsbridge Grammar School buildings. Mrs Evelyn Northcott persuaded English China Clays Ltd. to rescue the derelict building and found a museum to collect and record the social history of the area.
The Museum was named after William Cookworthy, who was born in Kingsbridge, and who developed the first true hard-paste porcelain (“china”).
The Museum facilities now include:
Displays of artefacts from the early history of Kingsbridge through to the present day;
A gallery of agricultural machinery and tools;
A collection of over 16,000 photographs dating from the 1870’s through to the present day;
Costumes from the 19th and 20th centuries;
A viewing gallery giving a virtual tour of the Museum;
A resource centre to support personal research. This has many local documents including microfilm copies of local newspapers from 1855 to the present.
