Rare museum collections share £7.6m

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is investing £7.6m of funding towards six rare museum collections across the UK.

The largest grant has gone to The Leach Pottery Museum in St. Ives, Cornwall. The museum received £3.4m from the heritage fund to support its ‘next hundred years’ project.

The investment will go towards conserving the historic pottery buildings and climbing kiln, creating a new learning centre and developing a new activity plan to allow neighbouring communities to engage with local heritage.

READ MORE:

The Museum of Two Halves, consisting of a refurbished and enhanced Wrexham Museum in its current building and a brand-new National Football Museum in Wales, has received over £2.7m.

The museum will house a permanent display of the Welsh football collection for the first time in 24 years, 90% of which is of national and international significance.

“This is huge news for Wrexham,” said Wrexham County Borough Council Lead Member for Partnerships and Community Safety, Paul Roberts.

“The new museum is set to become a major new national attraction for the city, drawing new visitors from all over Wales and beyond and playing a key role at the heart of Wrexham’s burgeoning tourism and cultural offer.”

Over £800,000 has been awarded to The Diving Museum in Gosport, Hampshire. The funding will go towards essential building repairs and allow for improvement in access and sustainability at the museum, which is located inside a Grade-II listed Victorian gun battery and home to the world’s first-ever diving helmet.

Development funding

The latest funding round also includes three projects awarded development funding, which enables projects to be conceived and an application for a full National Lottery delivery grant to be made later.

The Museum of Aberdeenshire, home to approximately 250,000 items from Aberdeen Council’s collections, has been awarded £309,000 to transform Arbuthnot House in Peterhead, Scotland. NLHF says the funding will create a new museum for Aberdeenshire with permanent galleries.

Elsewhere, the Egypt Exploration Society received £61,000 to develop its plans to renovate the society’s home in Camden, while the Lancashire Cricket Heritage Experience, located at the Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground outside Manchester, was granted £176,000 to develop an interactive heritage hub.

The six funded projects join over 5,900 museums across the UK that have received NLHF funding, totalling over £2.4 billion over the last 30 years.

“Our latest investment in museums shows the incredible diversity and brilliance of our museums, with collections of local, national and international significance,” said Eilish McGuinness, NLHF Chief Executive.

“These projects will inspire visitors of all ages, with many of these collections being revealed for the first time, and all will connect people with the individual stories of sport, diving, pottery, archaeology and much more, adding up to a national story covering all the many and varied heritage we have to offer.

“Our investment in the cultural heritage fabric of these museums will inspire people, connect communities, and drive growth, allowing everyone to discover the amazing local heritage in towns across the UK and support our vision for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future.”