Museums - Blackburn Museum

The Blackburn Museum opened in 1872, originally serving as both a museum and a library. It houses the largest British-held collection of Russian and Greek Orthodox icons outside of London's Victoria & Albert Museum, a vast collection of Japanese woodcuts, and the outstanding Hart Collection of coins, books, manuscripts, and prints. The museum also holds a significant store of cultural material from South Asia, as well as a collection of ethnographic art. The latter centers around the Reverend Ashe Collection of Ethnography, which contains items obtained during the East Lancashire Regiment's 1880 expedition to Benin, as well as Maori artifacts, African masks and statuary, ancient Peruvian ceramics, and Native North American items.