A living-history museum in five restored 17th-century houses, with recreated interiors exploring textile workers’ homes, wartime Nottingham and the Victorian classroom.
At the foot of Nottingham’s Castle Rock, the Museum of Nottingham Life at Brewhouse Yard explores more than 400 years of local history through five restored 17th-century houses. Recreated interiors bring to life the homes of four families connected with Nottingham’s textile industries, alongside stories of urban growth, industrial change and everyday life.
The earliest cottages date from the 1670s, although brewing and malting are thought to have taken place here earlier. Brewhouse Yard was once an extra-parochial liberty, outside the jurisdiction of the town’s parishes. Its tax-free status attracted religious non-conformists and helped foster brewing in the caves beneath the Rock.
The nearby caves also feature in the story of Nottingham Castle, including the medieval events surrounding Mortimer’s Hole.
The museum follows the lives of families such as the Wildboares, cloth fullers and dyers; the Elliotts, associated with stocking manufacture and dyeing; the Lees, framework knitters affected by industrialisation and the Luddite unrest; and the Websters, whose lives were linked to Nottingham’s lace industry. Later displays cover the city’s water supply, the Castle Pumping Station and the use of the caves as Second World War air-raid shelters.
The cottages also served as a dormitory for volunteer firewatchers. Purchased and restored by Nottingham City Council in 1972, Brewhouse Yard now presents local history through recreated rooms and personal stories, including the recollections of Lucy Webster, who was interviewed in 1982 at the age of 89.
