Gloucester Waterways Museum is housed in a Victorian warehouse originally built to store imported grain in Gloucester Docks in 1874. It tells the story of the canals and rivers of Britain, relating how the building of the canals fuelled the industrial revolution and gave us the world we live in today. The artworks held tell a more domestic side of the story giving an insight into the people that lived and worked on the waterways.

The Gloucester Waterways Museum holds a nationally important collection of waterways painted ware at Llanthony Warehouse in Gloucester Docks. The collection includes items decorated by the well-known painters, be they master craftsmen or skilled boatmen. The collection also includes early items and examples of the decorated household items that may have influenced the artform producing the Roses and Castles we know today. Also held are a number of artworks, both professionally painted and painted by amateur artists, showing waterway scenes particularly of the waterways local to Gloucester.

Complimentary collections are held at the Canal Museum at Stoke Bruerne and at the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port, all three musuems being managed by the Waterways Trust.