Thirty years ago this museum was just a small collection housed in one room. Now the Dawlish museum is in the superb setting of a three storey Georgian residence, which is itself an important part of the town's history. As well as a Victorian parlour, kitchen shop and bedroom there are rooms devoted to toys of by-gone days, a collection of historical dressed dolls, china, prints, industrial tools, memories of Brunel's railway, war-time and military memorabilia, displays of local geological features and natural history. A collection of early surgical instruments donated by a retired local doctor is a recent acquisition.

The Museum has a large store of photographs, many of them housed in a series of albums which seldom fail to entrap visitors, sometimes for hours, while stored copies of the local paper from its foundation in 1897 are in frequent use by researchers.