The museum story
The Museum of British Surfing is currently working towards opening a new exhibition and event venue in the centre of Braunton on the North Devon coast.
Surfing has taken place on the area’s beaches since the early 1900s, and the village became a hub for the fledgling surfing industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s with its position as a gateway to the beaches of Saunton, Croyde, Putsborough, Woolacombe and Westward Ho!
Significant grant funding has been secured and the Charity is now working on the final fundraising to complete the design & build project which is being carried out by Bideford-based museum specialists Myriad.
A 74-year lease has been secured on The Yard, an old railway building on the village’s Caen Street car park – it includes Braunton skate bowl and the local youth club run by Devon County Council. The site is owned by Braunton Parish Council.
We’re developing a flexible and innovative museum – each year you’ll see a new themed exhibition at our venue which will then go on tour around the UK. Alongside this we’re planning smaller outreach displays and regular events at The Yard and other locations in North Devon, featuring music, film, art and culture.
There will a special focus on young people and those who might never have been to the coast – we hope to take the beach and our collection ‘on the road’! Look out for our special beach days, and surfing & skateboarding events.
You’ll continue to see our touring exhibitions at venues around the UK, along with other exciting installations designed to keep us flowing like a surfer on a wave.
We are grateful for your continuing support, including that of many individuals and businesses locally, nationally and abroad who have donated their time and money to contribute to our continuing success.
The Museum of British Surfing intends to be a carbon neutral operation, and as well as introducing the latest sustainable energy technology we’ll be looking at ways to help our visitors understand why it is so important to look after our environment.
The surfing museum project began in 2003 with a generous donation from the family of the late Viscount Ted Deerhurst, Britain’s first professional surfer and a personal hero of our founder Pete Robinson. Since that time has staged exhibitions all over the UK that have been seen by around 200,000 people. In 2009 it became a Registered Charity (1131433), establishing itself as the national body responsible for looking after Britain’s rich surfing heritage that dates back more than two centuries.
In the true spirit of the surfing community, surfers have stepped forward to help create something really special in our adopted home of North Devon – a huge thank you goes out to everyone who has made us feel so welcome in the ‘green county’ and helped bring us nearer to opening.
The Museum of British Surfing has the most extensive and historically significant collection of vintage surfboards, literature and memorabilia on public display and for academic research in Europe.
Our mission has been to try to collect at least one surfboard from every British shaper – we now have more than 200 boards dating back a century, and hundreds of associated items of surfing memorabilia.
The Museum of British Surfing – built by you, the British surfer!
In the beginning…
In 2003 a small band of surfing friends, led by founder Pete Robinson, got together to help create Europe’s first surf museum.
The family of the late Viscount Ted Deerhurst got us going with a donation from his trust, and we won sponsorship from Oxbow UK.
Dan Smith created our original logo, inspired by a mid 1960s Doug Wilson photo of Rod Sumpter riding his ‘Britannia’ model surfboard. Dave Huff built the website that did us proud for seven years, and Grant Winter developed the online shop that ran with it. Fastnet International in Brighton provided flawless hosting for the website free of charge.
People like Pete Robinson, John Isaac and Simon ‘Skelly’ Skelton scoured the country looking for vintage British surfboards and memorabilia.
Richard Gregory designed our graphic panels for our opening exhibitions that ran in Brighton in 2004 & 2005, then toured the UK, and Steve Frost weighed in with subtle and painstaking restoration and repair of the museum’s ever-growing collection of surfboards.
Bianca Robinson, Colin Blackman, Graham & Jules McDonald, Glenn Kessler, Atlanta Cook and many more pitched in with ‘hard labour’ to help transform our first gallery into a exhibition space. Brighton was our ‘test run’ for two years and it went so well that we decided to make it a mobile museum so that surfing communities around the UK could enjoy the collection.
After six years we settled in North Devon and moved the collection here – and while we’re still touring Britain work is now underway bringing the surf museum to life in our new home.