Dartmouth Museum was established by the town authorities in 1949 in the old Library in Newcomen Road – now a private house. The person responsible was Percy Russell, a local historian who had written the first authoritative history of the town. The Museum moved into the Butterwalk in 1954. Again, the leading light of getting the Butterwalk itself restored after war damage and then transferring the Museum into it was Percy Russell.

The Butterwalk is a terrace of four houses built by rich merchants around 1640 shortly before the English Civil War. The houses were then on the quayside so that the merchants could keep a close eye on the loading and unloading of their ships. The Butterwalk was built out over the river mud and has subsided and distorted to the point that there is not a horizontal floor or true vertical anywhere in the building.

On the second floor, there are two new exhibitions.  The Mayflower exhibition opened in 2020 and and in 2023 we opened a new exhibition exploring Thomas Newcomen and the impact of his atmospheric engine on the world and on Dartmouth.

In late Victorian times a polymath ironmonger in Dartmouth had accumulated a large and varied collection which, on his death, was bequeathed to the Town Council, who set up a museum in Anzac Street. This was closed in 1976 and the collection transferred into the custodianship of Dartmouth Museum.

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