Colne Valley Museum — Attraction in Kirklees

What a delightful, interesting and informative museum! We had such a lovely visit there with our Japanese friends. The museum’s four weavers’ cottages have been thoughtfully laid out and furnished.

A million thanks to every single volunteer - each attired in period costume - for your extensive knowledge, abundant dedication, genuine passion, detailed explanations and live demonstrations of weaving, spinning, clog making and so much more. You really brought the museum and its artefacts to life.

Additional thanks go to Grace for your impromptu clog dancing demo, to Julian for revising your Japanese and extending it to include explanations about the different machines and processes (much technical vocabulary and very impressive knowledge of Japanese), Pauline as duty manager for your warm welcome, Ruth for setting the whole visit up for us in advance and making sure it was so special for our Japanese visitors, and to whoever made the very tasty homemade cakes (great selection too). It’s decades since I’d drunk loose leaf tea using a tea strainer (these days I tend to use a tea infuser), so that really took me back to my childhood.

The museum really makes you think. Two things that really stood out to me were 1) the total lack of plastic (of course, as the museum is set in the mid 1800s) and how reliant we’ve become on this ubiquitous and often non-environmentally friendly product, and 2) the lack of waste by people of that time eg turning old clothes into rugs. Modern society has much to learn from attitudes and actions of that time and it’s interesting to see how some people now are returning to such attitudes by trying to reduce their use of plastics and focusing on reusing and repurposing the things they own rather than throwing them away.

The museum’s volunteers are impressively innovative and creative, engaging with the local community and tourists of all ages from children upwards through baking and cooking workshops, craft events, and varied videos on social media.

There is so much to see and learn about in this museum. We were there for the full four hours it was open, so we recommend you arrive early (it opens at 12 and only at weekends).

The museum’s volunteers immerse the visitors in the local industrial culture of the 1840s and give each visitor a truly engaging, personalised experience. For these reasons this small, delightful, unique, volunteer-run, historical museum really is (one of) the best museums I’ve ever visited. Highly recommended to local and international visitors like.

Update September 2025: I took four friends to the Heritage Open Day. Like me, they loved this little, vibrant museum with its amazing, informed and skilled volunteers. I enjoyed seeing the lace making and scone making demonstrations for the first time today. The volunteers really bring this...

We visited Colne Valley Museum on our holiday and really feel we found a little gem. Such an interesting museum, with knowledgeable and helpful staff. Accessibility-wise, this was something of a challenge - but the challenge came from the steep Yorkshire streets rather than the museum itself. In the end I decided to leave my wheelchair outside instead of attempting the main entrance. There is wheelchair access to the two main floors from street level, but no internal lift. Officially, dogs are not allowed inside but they made an exception for us and both dogs behaved beautifully (and enjoyed lots of fuss). On the top floor I learnt a lot about frame looms, the mechanics of a dobby, pattern design, warping a frame loom and weaving with multiple shuttles. Needless to say this was my favourite room. Unfortunately Will tells me I can't have a frame loom! The spinning and clog making rooms were equally informative and tea and cake were great in the cafe. We didn't look at the exhibition or the domestic rooms. This little museum is well worth a visit if you are in the area; it's open at weekends and staffed...

Brilliant living history museum

This museum has been fantastically renovated and shows how life would have been for a weaver and his family in the town of Huddersfield.

There is a lovely cafe, in which I've had many a cuppa and tasty piece of cake.

The displays they have are amazing the talents that are shown there really do show what the museum and the local community have to offer.

The bread bakes are awesome, the team down stairs are very welcoming and full of information about what they do. They will happily tell you anything you may need to know about bread and how it was made and the differences in the process to present. On Lily day the room and team are extremely busy but this does not change how they are with the customers, apart from the bread rationing as the demand is so high.

It truly is worth a visit and certainly don't...