Keswick Mining Museum

Otley House on Otley Road, Keswick has hosted two short-lived visitor attractions in the early 21st century: first a dinosaur-themed experience, and later the Keswick Mining Museum.

The building was initially used as the Keswick Dinosaur and Raptor Encounter, a small, privately run attraction operating in the early 2010s. Aimed mainly at families, it featured dinosaur and raptor models alongside educational displays about prehistoric life, fossils and natural history. Contemporary visitor reviews describe it as modest in scale, with a mixture of static exhibits and interactive elements. Despite its central location, the attraction struggled to gain long-term traction and closed after only a few years of operation, reportedly by around 2013–2014.

Following the closure of the dinosaur attraction, the same building at Otley House was repurposed as the Keswick Mining Museum. This privately run museum focused on the rich mining and geological heritage of Keswick and the wider Lake District, an area historically associated with copper, lead, graphite and other minerals. The museum displayed mineral specimens, mining tools, historical photographs and interpretive panels explaining local mining history, geology and mineral formation. Its subject matter overlapped slightly with the earlier dinosaur attraction through geology and fossils, but the emphasis shifted firmly toward industrial and social history.

The Keswick Mining Museum operated for several years but closed in 2013, reportedly following the retirement of its owner and the dispersal of the collection. After this closure, Otley House fell into disuse and gradually became derelict. In recent years the site has been described locally as an eyesore, with proposals emerging to demolish or redevelop the building for new commercial use.