NEW BOAT MUSEUM OPENS

The Lake District’s new Windermere Jetty Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories will open later this month following a £20m development by Lakeland Arts.

Principally funded by the National Lottery and based within the Lake District National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, the museum will display a collection of boats that reflects themes of technical, social and business development.

A series of new jetties on the lake will allow visitors to sail on Osprey (1902), one of the museum’s fully-restored Edwardian steam launches and enable the lake cruise boats to dock and bring visitors to the museum.

The new museum will tell the story of 200-years of boats, boating and boat building in the Lake District.

The collection ranges from Victorian steam launches to record-breaking speedboats from the 1980s. Vessels in the collection include SL Dolly, thought to be the oldest mechanically powered boat in the world, Beatrix Potter’s tarn boat which she used to sketch in and the 50ft luxuriously-designed Victorian steam launch Branksome (1896).

The museum opens March 23.