Its exhibits include maritime artefacts including medals awarded to Royal Navy and RNLI personnel, marine art, the fishing industry in Lowestoft and the town's involvement with the Royal Navy in World War II, shipwrights and coopers tools, an extensive collection of ship models in various scales, the workshop of Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, and a small display dedicated to Thomas Crisp, a local man who posthumously won the Victoria Cross during World War I. Britain's most easterly museum,[1][2][3] it is run by enthusiasts and volunteers and is open to the public from late April to late October each year.

[7] As the size of the collection increased, in 1968 the Borough Council granted the Society the lease of a period cottage in Sparrow's Nest Park in Lowestoft to house a permanent Maritime Museum.

Each room in the cottage was initially dedicated to various aspects of the fishing industry in addition to a special display on the Royal Naval Patrol Service, the headquarters of which for both World wars was located in the adjacent Sparrow's Nest Park, named as HMS Europa.

[7][8] As the collection continued to grow in size and scope, in 1977 the cottage was extended at the cost of £10,000, which was raised through donations and fund-raising activities.

Other exhibits range from interactive displays for children including a maritime identification trail, Lowestoft's connection with Madam Prunier and her London restaurant, a range of historic photographs and paintings, Lowestoft at war, a reconstruction of a ship's wheelhouse with working VHS radio to listen into passing ships and a small museum cinema showing archive films.