Opening hours

Tue - Sat: 10am - 4:45pm
Closed: Sundays, Mondays and Bank Holidays

Free Entry

There may be a charge for special exhibitions. Please call to confirm.

Extraordinary closures

Please note that the museum will be closed as detailed below:

Mummy on the move!
The Egyptian gallery will be closed from the 28 April. The Mummy will reappear when the new Ancient Civilisations gallery opens on the 8 June

Saturday 24 November
The Museum and Library will be closed for the RIC Members Only day.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

The Photographic Enquiries Service operates on Thursdays only.

Photographs provide information about the past but they can also provide enlightenment and understanding of our local and social history. From photographs we also find a sense of place, and a sense of our own heritage.

Collection Contents

Our collection contains over 50,000 images from 1845 to the present. The content of the collection provides a broad picture of Cornish life and culture captured by both amateur and professional photographers.

The majority of our images are negatives of various sizes from A3 sized glass negatives to modern negatives and transparencies. We also hold prints in a variety of forms, including albumen prints, tintypes and daguerreotypes.

Access
Access to our photographic collection is restricted and by appointment on Thursdays only.

We are keen to care for our collections to the highest standards possible and preserve them for future generations; therefore due to the fragile nature of the glass plate negatives we do not allow them to be handled. Immediate access is therefore not possible. However, we are currently in the process of digitising our images in order to improve access for our visitors. Digitised images including the mining and shipping collections can be searched and viewed on our database by appointment at the museum.

If you would like to research areas of the photographic collection that have not yet been digitised, you can view the photographic prints and the paper indexes to the negative collection.

To make an appointment or to order photographic copies, please contact the Photographic Enquiries Service:

Telephone: 01872 272205 ext 244
Email: photographs@royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk

Copies

Copies can be supplied at the prices shown for personal and research use only, and not for further reproduction. Prints and Negatives are supplied as high resolution digital prints.Please see the ‘Prices’ page on the left hand navigation bar for these fees.

Publishing and commercial reproduction of images from the collection can be arranged. Images can be supplied in electronic format to suit your publication needs. We have a scale of fees which will reflect the size of the image and the scale and type of the publication. Click here for details.