A WHITBY museum has won gold in Visit England’s Awards for Excellence Competition 2013 at a national ceremony.

Whitby’s Captain Cook Memorial Museum came out on top in the Small Visitor Attraction section against competition from all over the country.

Sophie Forgan, chairman of the trustees, said: “After last year’s White Rose Awards we could say we were one of Yorkshire’s best – but now we can say we are one of Britain’s best.”

Ten members of the team went on stage to receive the award.

Ms Forgan added: “It is another small feather for the cap of Welcome to Yorkshire –it has given us so much help in recent years.”

The award is the culmination of 25 years work by around 50 members of the Whitby community, most of them volunteers.

The museum’s application featured its exhibitions, activities such as the Knitted Sandwich competition and Apple Days, room guides in five foreign languages and international media coverage in countries such as Australia, Poland, Tahiti and Japan.

Visit England’s chief executive James Berresford said: “The Visit England Awards for Excellence represent the highest accolade in English tourism, and this year’s winners have raised the bar higher than ever before.

“The competition was fierce so all our finalists are to be warmly congratulated for their success – particularly our Gold Award winners, whose passion and commitment to excellence is exemplary.”

Other winners from North Yorkshire and the North East were Samuel’s at Swinton Park, Masham, North Yorkshire, who took home a gold award for the Taste of England Award; Rockliffe Hall near Darlington took a silver in the Business Tourism Award category; Cedar Court Hotel and Spa, in York was highly commended in the Large Hotel category; The French in York was highly commended in the Tourism Experience of the Year category; and the runner up in the Tourism Superstar category was Anthony Gales from Beamish in County Durham.