The North Devon Maritime Museum was opened in 1977 in Odun House, an historic merchant's home overlooking Appledore and the River Torridge. The Museum contains a number of exhibits relating to shipbuilding, seafaring, exploration, trade and daily life in this maritime community and the area's participation in the Second World War. Other displays include a typical nineteenth-century Appledore kitchen and a Victorian schoolroom. The North Devon Maritime Museum has a small collection of paintings in oils and acrylics relating to the area's seafaring past. This collection currently comprises 28 works, a few of which are on public display. The subjects portrayed include ship portraits, portraits of a local merchant and of a shipmaster, shipwrecks, coastal scenes and modern reconstructions of historic events, as well as generic scenes of ships and boats.