Tourist information – you may find useful Devon & Exeter Medical Society Collection -- Medicine Through Time is the pilot website of the Devon and Exeter Medical Society Collection. Part of the collection is currently on display at the Postgraduate Medical Education Centre at Wonford Hospital, Exeter. This website is an appetiser for what we hope will grow into a large virtual exhibition and learning space for the collection, for which further project funding is currently being sought. The Centre for Medical History, in partnership with the Telematics Centre and Devon & Exeter Medical Society, has obtained a Wellcome Trust grant for this pilot project and feasibility study to explore the possibility of extending public access to a collection of historical surgical instruments currently held in storage by Devon & Exeter Medical Society. This collection includes obstetric instruments, bleeding equipment and other surgical devices used by hospital and family doctors.

Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. The original 18th century hospital buildings (see right) survive in Southernhay but are now used as the administrative centre for the Health Authority. The present day hospital was re-sited at Wonford in the 1970's. The first hospital to be built on this site had a relatively short-lived history as it suffered from "concrete cancer" and required demolition and replacement after a mere 20 years.

Knowle House -- was built as a gentleman's residence in 1805. It now houses various collections donated by the people of Dawlish. These collections include: Victoriana, Militaria, Archives, Costume and Textiles Decorative and Applied Art, Fine Art, Natural Sciences Medicine, Weapons and War, Science and Technology Social History, Land Transport, Local Industries and Crafts. Dawlish Museum is now the home of the historic D-Day bagpipes.

Teignmouth & Shaldon Museum -- The West of England is known for its treacherous coast and the shipwrecks. Its maritime history is full of heroic feats and testing times: Despite 20 years of historical and archaeological research, the origins and class of vessel on the Church Rocks wreck site remains a mystery, although it certainly dates from the 16th Century. From studies so far made, the ship appears to have been two-masted, carvel built of some 100 to 200 tons and not dissimilar from the 'Zabras' the small fast communications and service vessels that accompanied the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1975, 13-year-old Simon Burton found a Venetian saker gun in shallow water about 150 metres off the Eastcliffe shore in Teignmouth. His find was the beginning of a long search into the origins of the ship, which even after all these years remain a mystery. Torquay Museum -- Ranked among the finest in South West England, Torquay Museum is a journey of discovery for all ages. This year the Museum joins many other organisations in celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin - one of the world's most creative and influential thinkers. Through a wide variety of exciting events, we will celebrate the impact that Darwin's ideas about evolution have had on our lives. A full listing of our events is available here - from close encounters with breathtaking bugs to the latest on the search for Neanderthals at Torquay's Kents Cavern.

The Museum's new Explorers Gallery, one of the most modern and creative galleries in Devon, traces the incredible journeys made by Torquay's famous explorers, from the frozen wastes of the Antarctic to the depths of the Brazilian rainforest. You can see fascinating artifacts from across the globe, including objects from ancient Egypt.

Many of the artifacts from Torquay's famous Kents Cavern prehistoric caves are housed in the Museum. The caves were home to man's ancestors as long as half a million years ago and have yielded some amazing finds, from possible Neanderthal remains to palaeolithic flint tools, woolly mammoth teeth to cave bear skulls