Photo: Rodw · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Ramsgate Maritime Museum

Former maritime museum in the Grade II* listed Clock House at Ramsgate Royal Harbour, closed since 2021 while the building is restored.

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. The museum in the Clock House has been closed since 2021 while the building is restored and extended; the council says the building will reopen once construction is complete, but no date has been published.

About the museum

The Ramsgate Maritime Museum is housed in the Clock House at the Royal Harbour in Ramsgate. The building was put up in 1817 by Benjamen Wyatt and George Louch and was later altered by John Rennie. It is Grade II* listed and appears on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register because of years of decay.

The Steam Museum Trust, a charity, ran the museum from 2012 until the lease went back to Thanet District Council in 2023. Before it closed the museum showed four permanent galleries on the harbour, navigation, fishing, lifeboats and shipwrecks, with a fifth space for a 17th-century demi-cannon raised from the wreck of HMS Stirling Castle. Many objects came from the Goodwin Sands.

The museum has been closed since 2021. Restoration work by Willmott Dixon began in August 2025 and includes modern exhibition space and a new café extension, funded mainly by government regeneration money. The collection is in safe storage. In early 2026 the council invited local people to say which stories of Ramsgate the new displays should tell, and the council has agreed in principle to run the museum.