Torquay Museum

Located up the road from the bowling alley is Devon’s oldest established museum. Torquay Museum was founded in 1844 by the Torquay Natural History Society and moved to the present building in 1876. Despite being comparatively small, it has over 300,000 specimens held in storage, only about 1% of which are on display. Items include prehistoric fossils taken from Kents Cavern, to an Egyptian mummy brought back by one of Torquay’s famous explorers. One of the most interesting displays charts the arrival of the first humans to set foot in Devon 450,000 years ago, and traces the ancestors down through time, and a museum in Torquay would not be complete without an Agatha Christie gallery. Torquay Museum has Britain’s only permanent display dedicated to her life and work containing a huge display of photographs, some of her personal belongings, original manuscripts and her own, hand-written notes.

In 2006 the museum secured a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund which allowed a major refit of the Pengelly Hall, turning it into a high tech lecture theatre and exhibition hall, providing the museum with the ability to host touring exhibitions from the National Museums and Galleries.

From 23rd June to 8th September the museum is hosting an exhibition entitled ‘Way of the Warrior – Gladiator to Soldier’, a collection of incredible weapons and armour, costumes and props from some of the biggest Hollywood movies, such as Gladiator, 300, The Last Samurai, Saving Private Ryan and Kingdom of Heaven.

You can handle replica arms and armour such as medieval and World War II helmets, knight’s gauntlets, a Roman shield, a rifle and chainmail. The highlights of the exhibition are the costumes worn Russell Crowe as General Maximus and Joaquin Phoenix as Emperor Commodus from the film Gladiator.