The RNLI's attraction opened to the public last week, two years after the old museum closed its doors.

The £1.5million tribute has been built on the site of the old museum which had become inadequate for showing the collection, a few yards from where heroine Grace was born and opposite where she is buried.

But before work could begin, all the collection had to be moved into storage, including Grace's coble, the centrepiece of the old museum, which was taken to Beamish Museum.

Artefacts were sent to specialists throughout the country to be cleaned and restored ready to go on show again.

Meanwhile back in Bamburgh, builders – main contractor D P Builders Ltd, of Amble, plus other sub-contractors, such as Oswald Hughes Electrical of Seahouses – worked on constructing a museum fit for a Victorian heroine.

Over the last few weeks the collection has returned home and the coble was the last to make its comeback – lifted over the new building by crane.

I remember being at the old museum many years ago but cannot actually recall anything about its content, so to see the new attraction was a delight.

The first thing I noticed was the low light – necessary to prevent damage to the artefacts.

The museum gives an amazing insight into her life, recounting the period before the rescue, the rescue itself in great detail and her short life after.
Grace, who was only 5ft 2in, was born on November 24, 1815, the seventh child of Thomasin and William Darling, a lighthouse keeper.

In her early years, the family lived on Brownsman Island but they moved to Longstone Island when she was 10.

The family lived in the lighthouse and there is a stunning interactive model in the museum which will be great to show children what life would have been like.

A pretty pink summer dress worn by Grace and her sister Thomasin caught my eye.

Tony Walton, museum manager, told me that it was a dull beige colour before it was taken apart, cleaned and stitched together again.

Other family memorabilia are housed in drawers – perfect for children to open.

There is much about the SS Forfarshire, which was thought to be unsinkable.

It set off from Hull for Dundee but en-route its boilers started to leak and off the Northumberland coast its engines stopped. It managed to reach St Abbs Head before drifting south.

Historians believe that its captain John Humble mistook the lighthouse at Longstone for that on Inner Farne and hit the rocks, an area notorious for ship wrecks.

Forty three people died. Nine were saved by the ship's lifeboat and nine by Grace and her father.

As in the old museum, the focus of the attraction is the coble which Grace and her father used to rescue survivors from Big Harcar Rock.

Grace took charge of the boat herself while her father helped survivors into the coble. They rowed back to the lighthouse where Grace and her mother helped care for them.

Her father and a crew member then went back to rescue more.