Hermanus Old Harbour Museum

Description

The Old Harbour Museum is located right in the tourist hub of Hermanus in the Western Cape. The museum depicts the history of the town back to the days when whale hunting was still permitted. It offers both an open air museum and an indoor museum with a whale skull display, intertidal exhibits, and a variety of old fishing boats and fish drying racks that date back as far as 1850.

The Old Harbour was declared a national monument in 1970 and proclaimed a museum in 1972. It consists of 2 sections, namely the historical old fishing harbour open air museum and an indoor museum. The indoor displays house exhibitions on natural history, items used in the fishing industry in the early part of the century, intertidal seawater displays, as well as angling and fishing paraphernalia.

Don’t forget to visit the fisherman’s cottage which has a photographic exhibition of Old Hermanus dating back as far as the beginning of the century and includes prints from glass negatives taken by famous photographer, TD Ravenscroft. The Selkirk Room is dedicated to the trophies and memory of Bill Selkirk, and features the jaws of his world record-breaking shark.