Museums and heritage

The Horniman Museum is planting a micro-forest on its site.

A 300m2 area of the south London museum's grounds is being redeveloped into a 'green screen', protecting its gardens from noise and air pollution and creating new habitats for local wildlife.

Plans were made possible following a successful fundraising appeal. The museum estimates it lost about £150,000 each month it was closed due to Covid-19.

Horniman's Head of Horticulture Errol Fernandes said donors have "played a vital part in creating something that will benefit our local environment for decades to come".

Planting will continue through the winter and into early spring.

Heritage-led regeneration is key for growth in Britain’s historic town centres, according to planning consultants Lichfields.

The company's Historic Opportunities report says heritage assests must be repurposed in “ambitious and creative” ways, citing environmental, economic and social benefits.

Analysis of Towns Fund, Future High Streets Fund and Levelling Up Fund applications revealed heritage regeneration to be one of six funding themes. 90% of Towns Fund bids intend to use at least part of their grant for heritage-led regeneration.

The report’s lead author James Fryatt says future projects should focus on reusing assets, with the average vacancy rate of historic high streets and towns at about 14%.

“This will see historic buildings increasingly adapted to reflect changes in retail and growing demand for leisure activities and creative and flexible workspaces."

Lichfield Heritage Director Nick Bridgland added: “Our report points to a successful future for those historic towns that take advantage of the available funding and adopt a fresh approach to heritage-led regeneration work."

Museums across the UK are tightening their Covid measures in light of the Omicron variant.

The Museum Associations reports many museums are making "contingency plans" for Christmas rotas, fearing a return to the staff shortages caused by self-isolation rules last year.

In accordance with Government guidance for retail, face masks are now mandatory in The National Gallery and The British Museum's shops. Both institutions recommend face coverings throughout their premises unless exempt.

The V&A, Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and Yorkshire Air Museum are amongst those now asking visitors to wear masks in all their public spaces.

Face coverings remain mandatory in all museums across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Seventeen heritage projects across the UK will share £1m to improve volunteers' digital skills.

The money comes from the National Lottery Heritage Fund's Digital Skills for Heritage initiative.

The fund aims to break down barriers and inspire the sector to get more people involved in heritage, according to National Lottery Heritage Fund CEO Ros Kerslake.

Charity for the blind and partially sighted Vocal Eyes received the largest grant (£99,814) for its Museums and Heritage Access 2022 programme, which primarily recruits digital volunteers from Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent communities.

Eleven museum professionals will share a £302,500 fund aimed at deepening their knowledge of chosen collections.

The Headley Fellowship with Art Fund programme, administered by the Headley Trust and Art Fund, has supported 22 curators since its inception in 2018. This year’s cohort represents museums across England and Scotland and collections of textiles, Scottish pottery and Egyptology, among others.

The fund covers the cost of filling a curator’s post for up to six months and up to £4,000 to support each fellow’s professional development.

The curators will organise exhibitions, digitise collections and share knowledge between museums.

“With this support, [curators] can take time away from the growing day-to-day pressures of their roles to focus on research that will lead to new ways to engage the public with their collections,” said Headley Trust’s Helen McLeod.

Plans to redevelop Oldham's library and art gallery into a £16m heritage site have been approved.

The new attraction will contribute to long-held ambitions for a cultural quarter in the town after a £27m redevelopment plan for the Coliseum theatre was axed.

This is the second attempt to create a heritage centre in Oldham: a plan was approved in 2018 but more stabilising works were needed.

The building will house Oldham's museum and archives, emphasising the town's historic role in the cotton industry.

A new gallery at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds will take "a unique public health led approach to tackle the underlying causes of violent crime".

The project with the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit of specialists across police, health, education, justice and youth services is due to open in January. 

It will feature Operation Jemlock - a police operation that confiscated hundreds of weapons and led to some 6,000 arrests over the past year. The partners also plan to work with community groups to tell real-life stories of youth violence.

The unit's director Chief Superintendent Jackie Marsh said engagement is crucial to long-term improvements in violent crime rates.

Dr Edward Impey, Director General & Master of the Armouries, said the institution shows how human experience is shaped by arms and armour to this day: "This is not a purely historical matter."

‘At the Sharp End: Tackling Violent Crime Together in West Yorkshire’ will be exhibited for six months and is expected to engage more than 100,000 people before touring the wider region.

Sixty-seven individuals associated with the National Gallery's history had connections to slavery and abolition, research has found.

Launched in 2018, the gallery's project is reviewing whether its historical collectors, trustees, donors, painters and founders benefited from the slave trade, or had links to slavery and the abolitionist movement.

It has covered years 1824 to 1880 thus far, finding a further 79 individuals with no relation to slavery or abolition.

The work is a collaboration with University College London’s Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, who are creating an online archive to present the data.

Work has begun on the project’s third phase, covering years 1880 to 1920, before a final phase investigating picture owners from 1640 is launched. 

An online petition to secure the future of South London’s Cinema Museum has received over 60,000 signatures.

It was sent to the museum’s landlord, property developers Lifestory, on Friday (November 5) in response to the expiration of its lease.

Lifestory's planning application to build a 29-storey tower on the Dugard Way site was rejected by Lambeth City Council.

The petition calls for Lifestory to be “fair to the museum”.

“2022 will see either the salvation or the destruction of this important piece of UK cinema and film heritage,” Director and Co-Founder Martin Humphries commented.

The museum estimates it had more than 20,000 visitors per year before the pandemic. A 2020 Crowdfunder campaign raised £75,000 to help the museum survive closure during Covid restrictions.