The grants, announced today August 26 2008, will help improve the quality of museum displays and enhance the experience for visitors to museums and galleries right across England.
Specific projects that will benefit from the grant scheme include a new display at Norwich Castle that focuses on the Castle’s 500-year role as a county gaol and a new post office for Blists Hill Victorian Town - one of ten museums administered by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
"This year, as before, the DCMS Wolfson Fund is providing support for museums and galleries from all regions of England, backing projects in national institutions, university collections and well-loved local museums and galleries,” said Culture Minister Margaret Hodge.
“I hope today's awards will help people all over Britain, particularly those with a disability, have improved access to the wonders of the old, new, beautiful and intriguing objects that are housed in England's museums and galleries.”
This is the seventh year of the current DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums & Galleries Improvement Fund, which has awarded a total of £24 million to institutions around the country since it was set up in 2002.
A combination of private and public funds, the grant scheme sees £4 million made available annually for museums and galleries to bid for grants to carry out specific projects such as restorations and gallery refurbishments.
Other winners of the awards include a new gallery dedicated to contemporary environmental issues such as climate change and extinction at Manchester Museum and a new front-of-house research facility at the Imperial War Museum in London. The Your History: Discovery Gallery will give the public better access to the museum’s vast archive and collection.
The largest single award this year of £300,000 goes to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which will build a new Birmingham History Galleries wing that will ultimately form part of a sequence of five interlinked galleries telling the story of Birmingham from medieval times to the present.
"The DCMS/Wolfson partnership has become an excellent example of what can be achieved when public funds are matched with private philanthropy,” said Paul Ramsbottom, Executive Secretary of the Wolfson Foundation.
“The awards announced today are a testimony to the quality and diversity of the country's museums and galleries. The Wolfson Foundation is delighted to be associated with these excellent projects."
