Set in the heart of Totnes on Fore Street, Totnes Museum is housed inside a remarkable Grade I listed Elizabethan merchant’s house, believed to have been built around 1575. The building may have been constructed for local merchant Walter Kellond, although the museum itself notes that newer research has questioned parts of that story. Proper old building behaviour, even the paperwork has ghosts.  

 

The house was bought by the Borough Council in 1958, extensively restored, and opened as a museum in 1961. Before that, the town’s museum collection had been housed in the Totnes Guildhall. Today, Totnes Museum is run by Totnes Museum Trust, an independent charitable organisation supported by volunteers.

​

But after dark, the museum's story takes on a different tone.

​

​

​

​

​

Over the years, visitors and paranormal investigators have reported strange experiences throughout the building, including sightings of ghostly cats, children, an unsettling male presence and unexplained sensations around the staircase. One of the museum’s most unusual features is the ship’s mast around which the main staircase is built, with some visitors reporting a strange seasick sensation nearby.