The Museum of Witchcraft
The world’s largest collection of witchcraft regalia, once persecuted
When one thinks of persecuting and burning witches, one imagines rural England or Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690s. However in England persecution of “witches” lasted well into the 1950s , at least in the form of attacks on the Museum of Witchcraft,
As a young man Cecil Williamson stayed with his Uncle the vicar of North Bovey in Devon, It was there he met a woman accused of witchcraft and after intervening to stop local teens from harassing her, the young man and the “witch” became friends. (Williamson is said to have been the “occult advisor” to the British secret service during the war.)
Cecil would go on to start the Museum of Witchcraft with his friend Gerald Gardner, but during its early years the museum would face some harsh persecution as well as problems from within. Gardner and Williamson had a falling out, resulting in the museum to split into two entities. Williamsons new
useum of Witchcraft would then be forced to move three times due to vandalism and pressure from the locals in the towns. In Bourton-on-the-Water dead cats were strung up outside the museum and the museum was set on fire, a kind of modern day witch burning.
Finally, Williamson settled the museum in the picturesque fishing port of Boscastle where it remains today. WIlliamson died in 1990 leaving the museum in the hands of Graham King, who organized a burial for the skeleton (which was in the museums collection) of accused witch Joan Wytte.
Today the museum has a very large collection of Occult and Witch related history and artifacts and among the exhibits are “Images of Witchcraft,”
Devil Worship and Satanism,” “The Hare and Shape Shifting” and appropriately an exhibition on “Persecution of Witches.”
Read more about The Museum of Witchcraft on Atlas Obscura…
Category: Museums and Collections, Unique Collections, Memento Mori, Relics and Reliquaries, Cultures and Civilizations , Rites and Rituals
Location: Boscastle, United Kingdom
Edited by: Facebook_804072437, Dylan