St Barbe Museum


Explores tales of boatbuilders, sailors, smugglers, salt-makers and farmers through an engaging mix of hands-on displays, models and artefacts.

The museum is also a New Forest information point.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Beaulieu

5.9 MILES

Petrolheads, historians and ghost-hunters gravitate to Beaulieu (bew-lee) – a vintage car museum, stately home and tourist complex centred on a 13th…

2. Buckler's Hard Story

5.99 MILES

The hamlet's fascinating Maritime Museum and heritage centre chart the inlet's shipbuilding history and role in WWII, and feature immaculately preserved…

3. Needles Old & New Battery

6.89 MILES

The Victorian fort complex at Wight's western tip is home to two gun emplacements where engrossing displays reveal how the site was established in 1862,…

4. New Forest Centre

7.93 MILES

Features a local labourer's cottage (complete with socks drying beside the fire), potato dibbles and a cider press. The minifilm makes for an accessible…

5. Carisbrooke Castle

11.24 MILES

Charles I was imprisoned here before his execution in 1649. Today you can clamber the sturdy ramparts and play bowls on the very green the doomed monarch…

6. Osborne House

11.98 MILES

Lemon-frosted and Italianate, Osborne House is pure Victorian pomp. Built in the 1840s at the behest of Queen Victoria, the monarch grieved here for many…

7. East Cliff Lift Railway

14.43 MILES

First built in 1908, this historic railway is closed indefinitely – possibly permanently – following extensive damage in a landslide.

8. Russell-Cotes

14.66 MILES

Ostentation oozes from almost every inch of this arresting structure – a mash-up of Italianate villa and Scottish baronial pile. It was built at the end…