Save Foxton Canal Museum

13th December 2025 | Local History

Join us in shaping the future of Foxton Canal Museum! Help us engage communities and keep canal history alive for future generations.

Foxton Canal Museum is at a pivotal moment in its almost 40 year history. After a summer of drought, severely impacting visitor numbers, our Museum continues to work with local communities, groups and visitors from around the globe. We are proud to be looking to the future with plans to extend our building, improve access for all and significantly redevelop how we tell the story of the Foxton Inclined Plane Boat Lift. This is alongside expanding our outreach to diverse communities locally and online. Support us now to continue to engage, inform and entertain our growing community of visitors and see our five year Museum vision come to life.

Built brick-by-brick by volunteers in the 1980s, the Canal Museum has become a hub for ever-changing, engaging history exhibitions and as a venue for local and waterways artists.

We work with diverse audiences including:

school pupils both at the museum and in schools, engaging young minds in colourful canal history;
families who enjoy our site trails and competitions; individuals who share their memories for our archives;
and visitors from around the globe who take a guided tour of the Foxton Inclined Plane Boat Lift. This is the only Leicestershire piece of 20th Century industrial heritage ranked as a scheduled monument by Historic England.

Accredited Museum

We are an accredited Museum, run as a charity. We’re funded by donations and grants focused on building connections with people by sharing the histories of the Inclined Plane Boat Lift and the story of the canals.

Our work is delivered by volunteers and paid staff, onsite, off site and digitally. Your donations will support both the ongoing programmes and ensure new work takes place at this nationally important site.

Donate now to help us:

£5 pays for 20 families to enjoy a Museum trail
£60 pays our Museum rent for one month
£150 pays for 30 school pupils to visit our Museum
£550 pays for us to hold a community informed exhibition

You can donate at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-foxton-canal-museum.

Thank you

Penny Arscott, Museum Manager