Derwent Pencil Museum

The Derwent Pencil Museum

The Derwent Pencil Museum
Location Southey Works, Keswick, Cumbria, CA12 5NG
Coordinates 54°36′14″N 3°08′31″W / 54.6040°N 3.1419°W / 54.6040; -3.1419
Visitors 80,000
Owner Derwent
Website www.pencilmuseum.co.uk

The Derwent Pencil Museum is in Keswick, Cumbria, in the north-west of England.

The world's largest colouring pencil, at the museum

The museum is home to the biggest colouring pencil in the world, the idea of technical manager Barbara Murray. The yellow pencil was completed on 28 May 2001, is 7.91 metres (26 ft) long, and weighs 446.36 kilograms (984.1 lb).[1]

The first pencil factory in Keswick opened in 1832. The second and current factory was started in the 1920s and completed in 1950 (it closed in 2007 when the owners moved production to Workington).[2] The museum opened in 1981, and now receives over 80,000 visitors a year from all around the world.

It is particularly popular with visitors from the county of Yorkshire, due to the importance of pencil production for the local economy during the 1930s. The museum features as one of the locations in the 2012 film Sightseers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The UK's oddest days out". BBC News Magazine. 15 September 2013.
  2. ↑ "End of an era at pencil factory". BBC News. 5 June 2007. Retrieved 2 December 2015.

Coordinates: 54°36′17″N 3°08′31″W / 54.6046°N 3.1419°W / 54.6046; -3.1419


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.