The Anne of Green Gables Museum is a private house museum dedicated to the life of L.M. Montgomery that is located in the Campbell Homestead in Park Corner, Prince Edward Island. Despite its name, which causes some confusion, the museum primarily focuses on L.M. Montgomery and not on Anne of Green Gables.
Throughout her life, L.M. Montgomery loved to visit her Aunt Annie Macneill Campbell, Uncle John Campbell, and her jolly cousins at Park Corner. L.M. Montgomery called their house Silver Bush, and it was her inspiration for Pat Gardiner’s home in her novels Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat.
The Anne of Green Gables Museum, which opened in 1972, contains many artifacts related to L.M. Montgomery. It is still owned and run by members of the Campbell family. A portion of the home functions as the museum where you can do a self-guided tour, while the remainder is their private residence.
East of the Campbell house is Campbell's Pond. This simple name was too prosaic for L.M. Montgomery, who renamed the pond the "Lake of Shining Waters." Montgomery later immortalized this name by having Anne Shirley rename Barry’s Pond the "Lake of Shining Waters” in Anne of Green Gables.
The museum contains the blue chest, which L.M. Montgomery wrote about in The Story Girl.
You can also see L.M. Montgomery's enchanted bookcase. As a child, she talked to her reflection in the glass, which was her imaginary friend Katie Maurice. This bookcase was originally located at the old Macneill homestead in Cavendish (The Site of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Cavendish Home) where L.M. Montgomery was raised by her grandparents. The bookcase was moved before the old home was demolished. Readers of Anne of Green Gables will recognize this story as being one shared with Anne Shirley. In Anne of Green Gables, Anne talks to her imaginary friend Katie Maurice, which was her reflection in the bookcase at the Thomas home.
On July 5, 1911, L.M. Montgomery married the Reverend Ewen MacDonald in the parlor at the Campbell house in front of the fireplace.
L.M. Montgomery had her own little bedroom at the Campbell house. The view from her window overlooked the Lake of Shining Waters. You can pay to take a carriage ride around the lake.
The museum displays a large collection of first edition books by L.M. Montgomery, photographs, and other artifacts, including a quilt and lace made by L.M. Montgomery.
There are also clippings from magazines and letters written by L.M. Montgomery. I had trouble photographing many of them because of the poor lighting, reflections, and harsh glare off the glass covering them.
This museum is nice to visit if you wish to learn more about L.M. Montgomery and the places that inspired her, but it's important to keep in mind that the focus is the author herself.
Official Website:
The Anne of Green Gables Museum
Location:
The Anne of Green Gables Museum
4542 PE Route, 20 Park Corner Ln, Kensington, PE C0B 1M0, Canada.
Image credits:
Photographs by World of Anne Shirley.
Map copyright OpenStreetMap.
Reference:
Hamilton, Kathleen and Frei, Sibyl. Finding Anne on Prince Edward Island. Ragweed Press. 1998.
Created July 17, 2007. Last updated August 9, 2024.
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