The Ely Museum has a long history dating back to 1849. While serving as the librarian at the Mechanics Institute, which was also housed in the prison, a local man called Marshall Fisher founded his own museum. Fisher was a “enthusiastic collector of a wide range of antiquities and natural history items who was also an amateur scientist” who oversaw his museum until his death in 1899 at the age of 92. In the twentieth century, Vernon Cross, a local baker, talented ventriloquist, and curio collector, maintained a museum of his finds at the tea shop and bakery he owned on Fore Hill, Ely. Cross, inspired by his love of the arts and his curiosity with anomalies, established a trust to construct a museum in Ely after his death. In 1975, the Sacrist Gate on High Street was converted into the Ely Museum, which was run by a small group of dedicated volunteers led by Dennis Adams, a local resident. Ely Museum moved into the Old Gaol in 1997, doubling the size of the ground floor and adding new galleries throughout. The show was officially opened by Mike Petty MBE, a local archivist and historian. Between 2019 and 2021, the National Lottery Heritage Fund funded a £2.2 million restoration of Ely Museum’s exhibitions and building. This entailed constructing a second-floor addition and restoring many of the museum’s historic features.