Sunderland Maritime Heritage

About Sunderland Maritime Heritage

Sunderland Maritime Heritage is a self-funded local history charity run by part-time volunteers from a unit on Church Street East in the East End. It began in 1999 as a campaign to save the clipper City of Adelaide, built in Sunderland in 1864, and has grown into a collection of models, photographs and records covering the city's shipbuilding and seafaring past. Highlights include a one-tenth scale model of HMS Venerable, the ship on which Sunderland sailor Jack Crawford served at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797.

The group is also restoring working vessels, among them the Willdora, a 1901 fishing boat that took part in the Dunkirk evacuation, and the former pilot boat Wearmouth. It usually opens on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10am to 2pm, and volunteers lead guided tours that are best booked ahead by email, phone or through its online booking page.

Featured in These Guides

Blog posts and guides that feature Sunderland Maritime Heritage.

Shipbuilding on the Wear: The Yards, the Liberty Ship and the SD14

The story of Sunderland's shipyards, from Thomas Menville in 1346 to Thompson's Liberty ship design, the SD14 and the 1988 closure, with where to see the river's shipbuilding past today.