Open Thu to Sun 12pm to 5.30pm (last entry time 5 pm)

History & Curator

" Best £3 I’ve spent all year! Fantastic museum – I’m telling all my friends to visit! "

★ About the Museum & Curator ★

Eel Pie Island Museum founder and curator, Michele Whitby, has had a passion for all things Eel Pie since taking on a studio space in Eel Pie Marine Centre in the late 1980s and beginning to discover the incredible history of this little Thames island.

 

Particularly fascinated to hear the tales of youthful abandon spent in the rundown ballroom at the Eel Pie Island Hotel, complete with an anti-establishment soundtrack of ground-breaking music supplied by many of todays’ rock n roll royalty, she embarked on a mission to discover, record and collect as much as she could about the island’s history…and is still doing so to this day.

 

Michele co-authored the books ‘Eel Pie Island’ (Francis Lincoln, 2009) and ‘The British Beat Explosion’ (Aurora Metro, 2013). She curated ‘Eelpiland’ at the Stables Gallery, Orleans House, in 2013 as part of a larger project organised by Aurora Metro Arts and Media Charity, with HLF funding. See here for full details.

Michele then went on set up a five-month ‘pop-up’ Eel Pie Island Museum in Twickenham Library in 2015, with the support of friends, Richmond upon Thames Council and local businesses.

Spurred on by the success of these exhibitions, and supported by a growing team of equally passionate volunteers, she set out to achieve her dream of making the Eel Pie Island Museum a permanent part of Twickenham’s landscape. Crowdfunding, local business sponsorship and a Mayor of London grant provided the funding. Richmond Council offered affordable rent for part of an old building that was largely being used for storage, and so the stage was set to turn 1 – 3 Richmond Road, originally built as a cinema in 1913, into the Eel Pie Island Museum.

 

The museum opened its doors on 23rd February 2018. The ribbon was cut by island resident and famed inventor of the clockwork radio, Trevor Baylis, alongside lead singer of the Downliners Sect, Don Craine. Since then we have welcomed thousands of visitors from over thirty countries, rolled out presentations and walking tours, and made countless of cups of tea and coffee for our visitors! Our guest book is full of appreciative comments and it is the gratitude and delight of visitors that makes all our work so worthwhile.

‘Eel Pie Island is an incredibly special place to so many people. From the teenagers of the 50s and 60s discovering a wealth of new music alongside finding freedom to discover themselves, and the maverick, enterprising characters who found the space to develop world-class boat-building skills, to the current day unusually symbiotic mix of wealthy property owners, boatyards, boat-dwellers, artists and small businesses.

Aptly described as ‘An oasis of chaos, in a desert of suburban calm’, there is a spirit about this little piece of land, washed by the daily ebb and flow of the Thames, that seems almost magical.

Comparative to its size, Eel Pie Island has an immense amount of fabulous history and stories, the telling of which could keep me busy forever!’


– Michele Whitby, Curator

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