Museums and heritage

Plans to establish a new branch of the Natural History Museum in Scotland have stalled due to staffing changes at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), it has emerged.

Aberdeen City Council is considering the viability of transforming the Norco House building, a Brutalist landmark that until recently housed a John Lewis department store, into a satellite of the museum.

The store closed in December 2020 and the building was subsequently used as a Covid-19 vaccination centre. It is now up for sale for £5m and the council has been attempting to discuss the project with DCMS, which directly sponsors the Natural History Museum.

A report published by the council reveals that while “officers are looking to meet with the head of cultural development and place-based investment to discuss the proposal”, the plans “have not progressed due to changes in personnel in DCMS”.

DCMS’s previous head of cultural development moved to a new post in April and the post has not been occupied since then.
 

Glasgow’s museums will be the first in the UK to repatriate artefacts to India after Glasgow Life, the charity which manages the city’s museum collections, signed an agreement to return seven Indian antiquities.

Work on the repatriation of the artefacts began in January 2021 and was recently approved by Glasgow City Council’s City Administration Committee.

Dignitaries from the High Commission of India were welcomed for a transfer of ownership ceremony at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum last Friday (19 August).

The repatriation is part of a wider move by Glasgow Life Museums, which is also repatriating 19 Benin bronzes to Nigeria and 25 Lakota cultural items sold and donated to the city’s museum collection in 1892.

In June, the museums welcomed a delegation from Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments to discuss the transfer of ownership of the artefacts and future dates for their return.

Duncan Dornan, Glasgow Life's Head of Museums and Collections, said the transfer of ownership “symbolises a significant step for Glasgow, with the city continuing its positive repatriation history by ensuring these cultural artefacts are placed back in the hands of their legitimate owners.”

“Credit must be given to the High Commission of India and British High Commission for their cooperation and support. We look forward to continuing our work with the Indian authorities to deliver the safe return of these artefacts,” he said.

Some of Britain’s historical artefacts are at risk of being lost forever amid a rising wave of heritage crime, a senior police officer has warned.

Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Nolan told the Telegraph that thieves are increasingly targeting churches and other historic sites around the UK, confident they can steal valuables or raw materials undetected amid shrinking congregations and waning interest in local historical sites.

Nolan, who was appointed national policing lead on heritage crime two years ago, said that police receive very little intelligence about crimes against historic buildings and monuments, in contrast to other crimes such as antisocial behaviour.

She warned that public "antipathy” towards the protection of heritage assets is worsening the problem and said that the scale of heritage crime is hard to judge because it is often unreported.

A total of 16 churches were targeted by thieves in July and previous research has found that nearly 20% of listed buildings were physically affected by crime in the space of a year.

“I think the thing to remember with heritage crime is that some of the things that are targeted are literally priceless,” she said.

“I think we should not necessarily judge the individual objects, just looking at how we can protect them and keep the country’s stories alive.”

The Brunel Museum has announced it will use funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund to create a new programme in support of young women in engineering.

The project, entitled Sophia’s Story, was inspired by Sophia Brunel, the older sister of civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Once described by Lord Armstrong as “Brunel in petticoats”, she was a promising engineer in her own right.

The project is designed to help girls and young women under the age of 15, both within and outside school settings, to engage with engineering. It has three strands, each targeting different age groups.

As part of the programme, the museum will work with students at Bacon’s College in Rotherhithe to develop a film about women in engineering for inclusion in the museum’s permanent exhibition. 

The project is designed to help improve gender representation and access to female role models in engineering careers by delivering sessions tackling gender stereotypes to co-ed schools, with the intention of training boys and young men to recognise and challenge gender bias.

It also aims to encourage young women in the early years of secondary school to consider taking STEM-related GCSEs.

Controversial plans to add a new central hall to the National Railway Museum in York have been approved after a knife-edge vote from members of the local planning committee.

The plan to join the museum’s two halves with a rotunda has attracted opposition from local residents because it will close Leeman Road, a direct route used by people to access the city centre.

Residents will be able to pass through the museum to reach the city centre but access will be limited to opening hours and could involve delays and bag searches. An alternative route around the museum is expected to add 400 metres to the journey.

The application was initially deferred for a month at a meeting in July to allow an equalities impact assessment to be carried out, after councillors raised concerns about accessibility for disabled residents.

But disability rights campaigner Flick Williams described the assessment as “a hastily completed desktop exercise” and specialist access consultant Helen Kane described it as having “serious failings”, according to Yorkshire Live.

The museum’s director, Judith McNicol, said the museum took “issues surrounding access and equality very seriously” and said that the museum had employed accessibility consultants when designing the building.
 

The world's first iron-framed building will open next month as a visitor attraction following a £28m restoration.

Known as the "grandparent of skyscrapers", the Main Mill structure at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings paved the way for modern-day skyscrapers as the world’s first iron-framed building following construction in 1797.

The site, consisting of eight listed buildings, has been closed for the past 35 years, but four of the buildings are due to open next month as a visitor destination and workspace following a £28m, eight-year restoration programme overseen by Historic England.

The opening will be accompanied by a new exhibition, "The Mill", telling the story of Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, its crucial role in the industrial revolution and those who campaigned to save it.