The doors to the proposed Yarmouth Maritime Museum were open to the public during to an open day last Saturday.

The museum will be on the former Yarmouth Primary School site, which moved to its new home in Freshwater in December 2022, and has been bought by The Yarmouth Community Foundation.

Plans for the new museum are well under way, with architects, who specialise in heritage buildings, drawing up plans which will be made public to the community, hopefully, before the end of the year.

The IW Observer was given a tour around the grounds by Izzy Turtle, museum supervisor of the Shipwreck Centre, at Arreton.

In time, the Arreton museum’s exhibits, owned by Martin Woodward, will be moved lock, stock and barrel to the refurbished building in Yarmouth.

Izzy said: “We have had so much support from the town after an initial reticence, but opinion has shifted. There will be some new build, but the Victorian structure will remain in place.

“We have volunteers here three days a week who have been cutting back all the undergrowth out the back and clearing the inside of the building. We even had a local farmer who came down with his tractor to help us.

“As you enter the old school to the right, there will be exhibition rooms which currently house a series of displays entitled ‘Forgotten Wrecks’, ‘Black and Asian Soldiers in the First World War’ and ‘Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War’.

“There is also a pictorial history of the school, because we don’t want to erase the school’s heritage.

“It will be a few years before we’re fully operational because we are still applying for various grants and funding and we have already been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

“The main building work will take place on the other side of the original school where extensions have been added on over the years. There will be an archive conservation area and a library as well as a café.

“And on the field out the back, there are plans for a new Scout hut and some social housing but that is down for the IW Council to plan and organise.”

A constant stream of people visited the site throughout the day, including town councillors past and present, including the Mayor, Debbie McCleary, as well as members of the Town Trust.

There was also a sale and auction which included a Dr Who Tardis, which no-one knew was on the premises! Izzy said: “We found it in a garage and put it back together again it looks amazing. But we have had former teachers visiting and they have no idea when it was used.”

Other items up for grabs were toys and furniture including a piano. All money raised will go towards the new project.

Professional diver, Martin, the driving force behind the museum, is still in demand around the world, and would have attended but was working in Barbados.

Before he left, he said: “Initially, it was just a pipedream, but I can’t believe it’s all coming together.”