Menden Museum

**Menden Museum**
	; Museum building
Data
place	Menden (Sauerland) , North Rhine-Westphalia
Art	Local museum
opening	1912
Website	official website
ISIL	DE-MUS-093918

The Menden Museum is a local museum in Menden (Sauerland) .

History and collections

The museum founded by Friedrich Glunz in 1912 is one of the oldest in Westphalia . It is run by the city and has been housed in the patrician house of the merchant Biggeleben on Marktplatz 3 , built in 1730, since December 24, 1914 . The building has been a listed building since March 4, 1983. Two months after the museum was founded until the move in 1914, the first exhibits were in two rooms in the old town hall.

The collections, which date back to the Paleolithic Age, include originals from the cave bear skeleton , a woolly rhinoceros skull , hand axes and other items , mainly from the Hönnetal . Hand tools and scales on display give an impression of urban life in the Middle Ages , handicrafts and clothing of that in the Biedermeier period .

The museum has an extensive collection of weapons. The interior of a Menden farmhouse from around 1800 can be viewed under his attic .

A showcase with information and documents about the witch trials is also installed . A relief on the history fountain on the market square in front of the museum reminds of the witch hunt.

Current museum expansions (branch offices)

In 2010 a branch office was opened in the so-called "Schmarotzerhaus". In the half-timbered building from 1710, which is also a listed building, the story of the hard life of a Menden day laborer with his large family (around 1840) comes to life.

In 2011 the Poenigeturm was added as a second branch to the museum.

Since 2019 the city of Menden has had a small industrial museum in the manor house of Gut Rödinghausen , which is assigned to the museum as an additional branch as the Menden industrial museum.