Welcome to the 24 Hour Museum news in brief page for the week ending December 24 2006.

21.12.2006 - Navy's role in end of slave trade to be told at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £33,100 to the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for an exhibition in 2007 focussing on the pivotal role of the Royal Navy in the suppression of the slave trade.

Part of the grant will fund audio-visual displays that will vividly bring to life the words of men who served off West Africa, which have been found in unique first-hand accounts held in the Museum's archives.

By 1865 nearly 150,000 people had been freed through the Navy's anti-slavery operations and many sailors in the West Africa Squadron lost their lives in naval operations of the time.

The grant will also fund a related schools' programme and community event.

21.12.2006 - National Trust Scotland backs campaign for trams in Edinburgh

The National Trust for Scotland is backing proposals to introduce trams to Edinburgh and has written to all Councillors in the city to set out its position.

In a letter to Edinburgh Council, John Mayhew, Head of Policy and Planning, said: "The unique character and setting of the city have made it a World Heritage Site. The Trust has a keen interest in future plans for the World Heritage Site and in protecting its architecture and townscape, and feels that trams can contribute to this by helping to reduce the overall level of traffic in the city centre."

The letter went on to pinpoint several reasons why trams would be beneficial to Edinburgh including energy efficiency, reducing congestion, social justice and quality of life.

21.12.2006 - First ever material that gets fatter when stretched goes on display at Science Museum

A logic defying material which gets fatter when stretched and thinner when squeezed has gone on display at the Science Museum in London.

Materials with these characteristics are called auxetic. Auxetic substances or compounds respond in unexpected ways when stretched - they can be seen to expand when pulled. Discovered by Dr Kim Anderson and Virginia Simkins from the University of Bolton, the auxetic fibre sample is on display in the Museum's Challenge of Materials Gallery.

Other new objects in the Gallery include: bone scaffolds made out of glass used for replacing damaged facial tissue; ceramic on ceramic hip replacements and silicone implants for the chin, calf, breast or testes.

20.12.2006 - Hereford Cathedral celebrates poet with a new stained glass window

Hereford Cathedral will be unveiling its new stained glass window on Sunday March 25 2007 - a fortnight before the celebration of Palm Sunday - in commemoration of poet Thomas Traherne (1637 - 1674).

The installation of the window will see the conclusion of a year-long stained glass project by internationally renowned stained glass artist Tom Denny, who has been creating four new stained glass windows for the recently restored Audley Chapel at the Cathedral.

Thomas Traherne was the little-known Hereford cleric, poet and writer who became renowned in the early twentieth century as one of the English Metaphysical poets although in his lifetime, only one of his works was ever printed.

20.12.2006 - Women's Library recognised for archive project

The Women’s Library has won an Archives Landmark Award 2006 for an innovative project bringing together young women from six schools in East London to explore women’s history.

The Awards, given by London Metropolitan Archives, celebrate the creative and imaginative use of archives in relation to projects run through schools and colleges, youth work and community activities. The Library was praised for “engaging young women with their own history and giving them the means to explore further" which was recognised as "personally empowering and culturally important.”

Entitled Changing Lives, the project will run again in 2007. Anyone who would like more information about it and the Library's other work with schools and young people can contact them on: moreinfo@thewomenslibrary.ac.uk

20.12.2006 - Culture Minister places export bar on The Crucifixion

Culture Minister, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on The Crucifixion, a painting by the Netherlandish artist Karel van Mander the Elder. This will provide a last chance to raise the money and save the painting, which is the only known work of this artist existing in the UK.

The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The Crucifixion, an ambitious and atmospheric painting and the only known work by van Mander in the United Kingdom, has been recommended as an exceptional example of the artist’s work, both in its subject matter and its quality.

Museums and collections now have until February 18 2007 to show an interest in the painting with a possible extention until May 18 2007 if a serious intent to buy is registered.

19.12.2006 - WWI Veteran Henry Allingham to visit former aircraft at Fleet Air Arm Museum

Henry Allingham, one of only four surviving British veterans from the Great War, is to visit the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Somerset on December 21 for a parade and to see the museum's prized exhibit of a Short 184 seaplane.

Mr Allingham, who is aged 110 years, was an aircraft engineer who took part in the Battle of Jutland off the Danish Coast in 1916 - as did the plane now kept at the museum.

"We are honoured that Mr Allingham will visit the museum," said Graham Mottram, the Museum's Director, "I can't wait to see his face when he is reunited with aircraft of his day."

19.12.2006 - HLF Money To Open Up Newcastle's Underground Tunnels

The Heritage Lottery Fund has given more than £200,000 to Newcastle City Council to open up a stretch of the Victoria Tunnel, which runs underneath the city for about two and half miles.

The money will be used to renovate and open a part of the tunnel in the Lower Ouseburne Valley as a visitor attraction. Volunteer guides will also be trained to guide visitors through the history of the tunnels, which were built between 1839 and 1842 as an underground railway to carry coal from Spital Tongues Colliery to boats at the mouth of the Ouseburne Valley on the River Tyne.

Work should be completed and the tunnels opened by summer 2007.

19.12.2006 - Simon Armitage Is Yorkshire Sculpture Park's Visitng Artist For 2007

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) has announced a year long collaboration with Simon Armitage, one of Britain's most popular and highly regarded poets.

As YSP Visiting Artist for 2007, Armitage will mark the 30th anniversary of the Park by responding to its landscape, art and people via a series of installations, writing and performance events.

Armitage's contribution as YSP Visiting Artist begins with five lines taken from his new translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, inserted into fortune cookies to be distributed at the London Art Fair - January 17 - 21, 2007.

18.12.2006 - Manx National Heritage secures TT artefact for centenary celebrations

Manx National Heritage has secured a historic silver hip flask from the inaugural TT motorcycle races in 1907.

The artefact will form part of an exhibition to celebrate the centenary of the famed road races at the Manx Museum from May to November 2007.

It was presented to Harry Rembrandt Fowler (1882-1963), known as Rem, who won the twin cylinder class on May 28 1907, and loaned to the museum by a private collector.

Riding on a Peugeot-engined Norton, Rem stopped ten times during the race. He had to change an inner tube and two spark plugs; he fell off twice then wired up a mudguard and also wired up the advance spark lever. Then he dropped his pump and had to pick it up, and he also stopped twice to take up slack in his drive belt.

Despite all this he won in a time of 4 hours 21 minutes 52 seconds averaging 36.32 mph.

“When I first saw the hip flask I was thrilled,” said Matthew Richardson, Manx National Heritage Curator of Social History. “The connection to Fowler makes it a real piece of history and as far as we know it is the only surviving artefact connected with that first race."

18.12.2006 – Lottery grant for museum at Sheringham

Norfolk will have a new museum in Sheringham thanks to a Heritage Lottery grant of £799,500.

Costing £1.1million overall, the museum will be situated in a turreted building on the seafront which has been unused for a decade (‘the Mo’). Due to open in the summer of 2008, it will contain a collection of historic lifeboats and an education room with sea views. The building’s tower will give a 360-degree panoramic view of the town and shore.

The main focus of the museum, to be called A Place of People and Boats, will be the fishing industry, as well as geology, boatbuilding and tourism.

Cottages at the site of the former town museum are currently up for sale in order to raise the remaining finances.