Arts Council England has announced that more than 60 galleries, museums, libraries and cultural venues across the country will receive £48 million as part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) Cultural Investment Fund.
Organisations will receive funding to improve people’s access to the arts, safeguard cultural assets for future generations and power economic growth through culture. Funds have been awarded to recognised public venues including the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and Bletchley Park. The scheme also supports smaller venues such as True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum and heritage sites like Berwick Barracks in Northumberland.
Others include:
Located on the University of East Anglia campus, The Sainsbury Centre is one of the most prominent university art galleries in Britain, and a major national centre for the study and presentation of art. The Norman Foster designed building houses the extraordinary art collection of Robert and Lisa Sainsbury, as well as the Anderson Collection of Art Nouveau and the University’s Abstract and Constructivist Collection. Alongside these permanent collections, the Centre hosts a range of temporary exhibitions, along with an award-winning learning programme of gallery talks, lectures and art workshops.
The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts will receive £325,000 to enable vital work to be carried out to the fabric of the building and protect artworks from light damage.
One of the first purpose built free museums to open outside of London in 1874, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery houses a rich and fascinating collection, covering fine art, decorative art, Egyptology, coins, manuscripts, natural history, social history and South Asia.
The Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery will benefit from £365,000 to replace its roof.
True’s Yard is a heritage site and town museum that tells the fascinating story of King’s Lynn’s old fishing community, the North End. Today, it is virtually all that remains of the 900 year fishing industry that thrived in North End, which in its heyday had its own boat builders, chandlers, sailmakers, pubs, bakehouses and school.
£50,044 has been awarded for urgent repairs to True’s Yard.
Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, once the top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers, is now a museum and vibrant heritage attraction. It is a self-funding historic visitor attraction with over 250,000 visitors per year. Additional buildings continue to be restored and opened to the public.
Managed by the Bletchley Park Trust, the museum has been awarded £468,393 through the Cultural Investment fund.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is located in the Royal Pavilion garden, at the heart of the city’s cultural quarter. Its diverse collections bring together the arts and history to tell stories about the city and the world we live in.
The Fund is granting £1.46 million to the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust for urgent repairs to the grade II* listed Brighton Museum and Art Gallery roof. Many of the structural elements of the roof lantern are in urgent need of replacement and reglazing.
Opened in 1829, the Rotunda Museum was a purpose-built museum built to a design suggested by William ‘Strata’ Smith. The interior, with its fascinating Georgian gallery, features a frieze showing the geology of the local coastline designed by Smith’s nephew, John Phillips. The original cases tell the history of the museum and they explore the stories of the nineteenth century Scarborough Philosophical Society which brought the collections together.
Visitors can see remarkable 11,000-year-old artefacts including an antler headdress, barbed points, birch bark rolls, flint tools and animal remains. There are also many wonderful creatures, who once called Yorkshire home, in the ‘Ancient Seas of the Yorkshire Coast’ display. The museum houses a fascinating collection of fossils and specially commissioned reconstructions of what marine life was like millions of years ago.
Scarborough Museums Trust has been awarded over £250,000 to repair the roof of the Grade-II listed Rotunda Museum.
Steve Smith, Managing Director of Smith Greenfield, said:
“This continues to be an extraordinary time, and funding like the Cultural Investment Fund is vital in supporting and sustaining our cultural heritage. When undertaking maintenance or building work, it is important to check that this is covered by your existing insurance policy. We recommend letting your broker or insurer know that you are about to conduct work to be certain your insurance cover remains in full and effective operation.”
Smith Greenfield provides specialist insurance for museums and heritage buildings. To discuss specialist museum insurance or historic buildings insurance, please contact Steve Smith, Managing Director, via steve.smith@smithgreenfield.co.uk
Photo: Sainsbury Centre. Pete Huggins