Canterbury Shaker Village — Attraction in Canterbury

We were treated shockingly poorly by the store clerk at Canterbury Shaker Village, and it completely ruined what was supposed to be a pleasant visit on my birthday. When we arrived, we walked up to the store, it was me, my partner, and our baby. The moment we stepped inside, we weren’t greeted at all, just given a dirty look. An older couple came in right after us and immediately got a warm welcome and an offer for a tour.

We left the store quietly, only for the clerk to run out after us, demanding, “Did you guys want a tour or something?! It’s $25!” We explained that we just wanted to walk around, and she snapped, “This is a museum!” in a condescending tone, practically rolling her eyes. It was unnecessarily rude and incredibly unprofessional.

We’ve been here plenty of times before, always allowed to walk the trails for free, and every other staff member we’ve met has been friendly, helpful, and clear about the policy that if you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t enter buildings. That’s completely reasonable, and we’ve always respected that. This clerk, however, acted as if we were doing something wrong simply by being there. She seemed miserable and didn’t bother to speak to us until chasing us down outside, scolding us while we stood there with our baby.

Her attitude was so off-putting that it felt personal, even ageist. Whatever it was, it was absolutely uncalled for. We weren’t there to make trouble; we just wanted to enjoy the grounds like we had in the past.

The Shaker Village is a lovely place, and other employees have always made our visits special. But one employee’s hostility and lack of basic courtesy were enough to sour the entire experience. We won’t be coming back, and we’ll be telling friends and family about the way we...

Oh boy was this different from reasonable expectations! This is NOT a nationally owned property with knowledgeable National Park Rangers providing tours! That's surprising since it's touted as a historic property, first of all. Our tour guide was slow to speak, and kept interjecting for his own entertainment pointless information, while we all stood outside in the sun being bitten by insects, to start with. It took nearly an hour to even have the opportunity to enter one of the buildings, and I should mention that he made a point of asking if anyone in the group was especially knowledgeable about Shakers and Shaker communities and then admitted he asked this because of the possibility of inconsistency of facts or information. What?! I cannot be sure of this was another of his ridiculous way of entertaining himself, or whether I should take everything he said with a grain of salt then.

There are trustees who take care of this property and this might be a "for profit" business. Regardless it's not an informative and insightful day-out for those looking to learn something and get a little insight into another way of life.

However, I CAN recommend taking the Robert Frost house tour since those tours are given by knowledgeable National Park Rangers, as well as taking the Mt Kearsarge Indian Museum tour.

By giving this review I'm simply trying to help those looking for something interesting to do, to avoid wasting their time and money. The gift shop was nice, but best of luck for those willing to take a chance on visiting this place and...

A lovely and peaceful place full of history of the wonderful shakers. Our tour guide Sister Claudia was wonderful. Started out giving us quite the backstory of the religion the founders this particular village and many interesting details. We however were too big a tour for one person and I can tell they're understaffed in general. Still not a lot was left to be desired however, we suggest that they accurately label the artifacts such as all the equipment in the laundry room, kitchen etc. so that people can just see what it is if a tour guide can't come and explain it in more detail. She explained the contents certain rooms in general but each piece should be labeled with its name a brief description and if possible it's vintage. This is especially important if people are just walking through self-guided. I heard that from several participants. There is however an entire room of the video which we didn't have a chance to see and so if you stop there you're going to get a more rounded understanding of the Shaker religion and that particular community. I hope they don't default to audio tours and they keep real life docents as the guides. It really lends something to the experience. Also they've got to make the bathrooms more accessible and certainly more obvious. Never could find them! Gift shop is really very nice I must say. Go there!!! We were part of a packagetour so I can't answer all the questions it's probably not free don't know about tickets purchase either. Just go...