Weston Park Museum wins funding
HLF grant allows Museums Sheffield to go ahead with £1m revamp
Museums Sheffield has secured a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant to redevelop Weston Park Museum.
The £697,000 grant will allow Museums Sheffield to go ahead with the £1m Weston Park Museum: A Bright Future project.
“The thinking behind this is to get more of the collection on display and to get more people visiting and inspired to keep returning,” said Kim Streets, the chief executive of Museums Sheffield. “We want to develop a system that allows us to change the displays more frequently and cheaply.”
Streets said that Weston Park Museum, which attracts 250,000 visitors a year, was already a popular and much-loved venue following its £19m redevelopment in 2006. The HLF grant will allow Museums Sheffield to build on this success.
Weston Park Museum: A Bright Future will see the creation of new displays in the museum’s About Art and History Lab galleries, updates to the Sheffield Life & Times and What on Earth display spaces, and improvements to the upstairs picnic space.
More of the city’s collections of archaeology, natural sciences, social history and visual art will go on display. And following feedback from visitors, Sheffield’s archaeological finds and sporting history will play a greater role in the permanent displays.
Work on the improvements will begin in late 2015 with the last of the new-look galleries being unveiled in October 2016. A final phase of fundraising scheduled for the new year.
Museums Sheffield’s recently received a £110,000 Department for Culture, Media and Sport grant to support the redevelopment of the Millennium Gallery’s Metalwork Collection displays, which will open in spring 2015.
In summer this year the charitable trust, which runs Weston Park, Millennium Gallery and Graves Gallery, was named as one of Arts Council England’s Major Partner Museums, which provides £1.8m over the next three years.
The £697,000 grant will allow Museums Sheffield to go ahead with the £1m Weston Park Museum: A Bright Future project.
“The thinking behind this is to get more of the collection on display and to get more people visiting and inspired to keep returning,” said Kim Streets, the chief executive of Museums Sheffield. “We want to develop a system that allows us to change the displays more frequently and cheaply.”
Streets said that Weston Park Museum, which attracts 250,000 visitors a year, was already a popular and much-loved venue following its £19m redevelopment in 2006. The HLF grant will allow Museums Sheffield to build on this success.
Weston Park Museum: A Bright Future will see the creation of new displays in the museum’s About Art and History Lab galleries, updates to the Sheffield Life & Times and What on Earth display spaces, and improvements to the upstairs picnic space.
More of the city’s collections of archaeology, natural sciences, social history and visual art will go on display. And following feedback from visitors, Sheffield’s archaeological finds and sporting history will play a greater role in the permanent displays.
Work on the improvements will begin in late 2015 with the last of the new-look galleries being unveiled in October 2016. A final phase of fundraising scheduled for the new year.
Museums Sheffield’s recently received a £110,000 Department for Culture, Media and Sport grant to support the redevelopment of the Millennium Gallery’s Metalwork Collection displays, which will open in spring 2015.
In summer this year the charitable trust, which runs Weston Park, Millennium Gallery and Graves Gallery, was named as one of Arts Council England’s Major Partner Museums, which provides £1.8m over the next three years.