Information
Zutphen Municipal Museum is a cultural history museum that collects items bearing on the history of Zutphen and the region formerly known as the Graafschap (now the Achterhoek) and exhibits them in an original way. It enables you to discover “The Story of Zutphen,” one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, with the aid of special objects from the museum, archaeological, and archive collections.
In the vaulted medieval cellar, one steps into the turbulent history of the site that developed into the city of Zutphen. A key event in this development was the Viking raid in the year AD 882, which is displayed in the form of a crime scene. The visitor will follow a route through time, with its extreme highs and lows – from the Hanseatic period, which earned Zutphen the sobriquet “The Richest” to the violence of the Eighty Years’ War. The pomp and circumstance of the nobility of Gelderland, including the celebrated “Zutphen Silver” can be admired, but the devastation wrought by the Second World War is also visualized. Other striking exhibits include some of the oldest objects in the Netherlands, such as the “oldest timepiece” (the Zutphen quadrant from 1300) and the “oldest photograph,” dating from 1839.
Christiaan te Strake, Curator (January 2023)