Staithes Museum joins Voucher Magpie: how your shopping can help keep a village's history free to visit

The Staithes Museum and Heritage Trust has joined Voucher Magpie. From today, you can choose it as your cause, and whenever you shop through one of our codes or deals, we'll give 50% of the commission the shop pays us to the trust. You pay the same price and still get your discount.

The trust runs Staithes Museum, a free, volunteer-led museum in the fishing village of Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast. It keeps the village's stories together in one place: Captain Cook, the fishing families, the mines, the lifeboats and the artists who came to paint the harbour.

At a glance

• Who: The Staithes Museum and Heritage Trust, registered charity 1188348, on the High Street in Staithes.
• What it does: runs Staithes Museum, free to visit and open every day from 10:30 to 16:30.
• Where: Staithes, between Whitby and Saltburn, covering the village and its neighbours Port Mulgrave, Runswick Bay and Boulby.
• How to help through us: choose the trust on its page, then shop as normal.
• What it costs you: nothing. The money comes out of our commission, not your basket.

A museum built by a village

Staithes Museum began in 1993 as a labour of love. Local historian Reg Firth and his wife, Anne, bought the old Methodist chapel on the High Street, a Grade II listed building from 1880, and filled it with the village's history. For years it was their own collection, gathered from the memories, photographs and attics of local people.

After Reg died, a group of residents led by David Linley came together to make sure the museum didn't close with him. They formed The Staithes Museum and Heritage Trust, which was registered with the Charity Commission in March 2020. With donations, grants and a benefactor who bought the building, the trust secured £110,000 to buy the collection so it could stay in Staithes for good.

Today the museum is run by its volunteers, a small team led by its curator and manager, Rosie Barnes, and seven trustees. It welcomed over 47,000 visitors in 2025.

What's inside

The collection holds around 2,480 catalogued items and 600 photographs, plus about 750 more items on loan. Among them:

• Captain Cook. Before he went to sea from Whitby, a teenage James Cook worked in a shop in Staithes. The museum has a model coble built from timber reclaimed from the cottage where he worked, and a model of his ship Endeavour.
• Life by the sea. Cobles, the village's own fishing boats, fishermen's tools, and the hand-knitted ganseys Staithes fishermen wore, alongside stories of smuggling, shipwrecks and the lifeboat crews.
• Mining. The alum, ironstone and potash workings that shaped this stretch of coast, with fossils and jet from its cliffs.
• The Staithes Group. The artists known as the Northern Impressionists, who painted the village from the 1890s, with original works by Dame Laura Knight.
• Village life. School desks, household things, stained glass from the old Sunday school, and a black mourning bonnet sent to Queen Victoria.

Entry is free and dogs are welcome, so the museum relies on donations and its shop, which sells work by local crafters and makers, to keep going.

How your shopping helps: a worked example

Say you spend £50 a month on books, train tickets and gifts at shops that pay us 4% commission. That's £2.00 commission, and £1.00 of it goes to the trust. Over a year, £12 comes from shopping you were doing anyway.

If 100 supporters did the same, the museum would get £1,200 a year, enough to help with the costs of caring for the collection and keeping its doors open free. Commission rates differ from shop to shop, so your own total may be higher or lower.

What you can do now

1. Choose the trust. Go to its page on Voucher Magpie and tap Choose. You don't need an account; we remember it on your device.
2. Plan a visit. Staithes is on the coast road between Whitby and Saltburn. If you're coming by train to Whitby or Saltburn, check Trainline for today's offers before you book.
3. Read up on the coast. Books on Captain Cook, the Yorkshire coast and the Staithes Group are at Waterstones, and art supplies for your own harbour sketches are at The Works.
4. Use it for everything else too. Clothes, holidays, broadband and gifts all count, so the museum gains whenever you shop through us.
5. Support the museum directly. You can donate on its website, once or monthly, or volunteer: greeting visitors, helping with short projects such as videos and exhibition writing, or digitising the collection from home.

Questions

Does choosing the trust cost me anything?

No. The shop pays us a commission for sending it your order, and we give half of it to the trust. Your price and your discount stay the same.

When does the museum get the money?

A shop confirms a sale, usually 30 to 90 days after the order, once the return period has passed. We pay each cause its confirmed commission every quarter.

Is the museum open all year?

The museum says it is open every day from 10:30 to 16:30, with last entry at 16:15, and entry is free. Check its website before a winter trip.

Can I change my cause later?

Yes, any time, from any cause's page. Your future shopping then goes to the new cause.

Sources: Staithes Museum, about the museum, exhibitions, volunteering, Staithes.org.uk, Charity Commission: charity 1188348