Captain Cook Birthplace Museum
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The Captain Cook Birthplace Museum is a free-entry public museum located in Marton, Middlesbrough within the borough of Middlesbrough and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England.
It is one of three institutions run by the Middlesbrough Museum & Gallery Service along with the Dorman Museum and upcoming Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
It champions, and surveys, the life, times and subsequent journeys of 18th century British naval explorer and circumnavigator Captain James Cook, whose birth in a cottage on this spot in 1728 is today commemorated by a granite urn bearing his name. The museum itself comprises some of the modest Cook-related collections outside of the ownership of the major national and international collections; including household items and a speculative reconstruction of the birthplace cottage that was swept away amid the landscaping process for the, now also deceased, Marton Lodge, home to the Rudd family, in 1793. Also on call to the visitor are a series of interactive displays and temporary travelling exhibitions as well as a cafe, gift shop, education suite and resources and archive room.
The museum first opened its doors in the setting of the town's Stewart Park in 1978, the 250th anniversity of his birth. A second major refurbishment was undertaken in 1998 whereupon Sir David Attenborough reopened it to the public. External to the museum can be found an information board in deference to Marton's position as the starting point for the 'Captain Cook Country Tour', a product of the Cleveland-wide Captain Cook Tourism Association.