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Address The Newarke, Leicester LE2 7BY, UK Hours Open today · 11AM–5PMSunday11AM–5PMMonday10AM–5PMTuesday10AM–5PMWednesday10AM–5PMThursday10AM–5PMFriday10AM–5PMSaturday10AM–5PMSuggest an edit Similar Jewry Wall Museum, New Walk Museum, Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester Guildhall, Leicester Castle | ||
The Newarke Houses Museum is a public museum in Leicester, England. It incorporates the museum of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, and has a range of exhibits illustrating post-medieval and contemporary Leicester. It occupies two buildings: Wyggeston's Chantry House (built circa 1511), and Skeffington House (built in the seventeenth century), close to the 15th century Magazine Gateway and within the precincts of the medieval 'Newarke', the 'New Work' of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster.
Amongst the items on display are various possessions of Daniel Lambert, an 18th century resident of Leicester who weighed over 50 stone (320 kg) and became famous in his lifetime as Britain's largest man, and remains one of the city's famous icons. It also has a 1950s Leicester street scene modelled in Wharf Street, and an exhibition of toys from Tudor times to the present. During the period 2014 to 2018 it held a rolling series of exhibitions marking the centenary of World war I entitled 'Leicester Remembers'.
The gardens of the museum are laid out on separate sides of the main building which has an extension into the garden. These are laid to box hedges in medieval style maze-like geometric patterns. The garden was stocked in Victorian times with a variety of exotic trees and other plants, several of which survive to the present day. The end wall of the garden had gun loops cut in it by Cromwell's troops the Roundheads in the English civil war when the Cavalier Prince Rupert was besieging the town.