East Riding Museums Service has been awarded a grant of £2,700 from the Art Fund to improve its archaeology displays at the Treasure House, in Beverley.
The East Riding Treasures Project, which starts in November and runs until April 2014, will include a new display and conservation of some important new finds, as well as a programme of learning activities – an interactive, a children’s workshop and a lecture on the subject of “Treasure”.
Dr David Marchant, the council’s museums registrar, said: “We are delighted to receive this funding, which will enable us to display some of our best finds in a new setting. We hope this will appeal to a wide range of audiences.”
In the past few years, East Riding Museums Service has acquired a number of significant local finds through the “treasure” process. The new funding will allow widened access to the most important treasure items in the collections, including Celtic coins, a Saxon sword pommel and some newly conserved Bronze Age weapons.
Councillor Richard Burton, cabinet portfolio holder for civic wellbeing and culture at East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said: “Securing this Art Fund grant is great news and will help our museums service to undertake more work to support the East Riding’s archaeological heritage.”
The Treasure House is a Heritage Lottery funded building, opened in 2007, combining museum, archive and local studies and library services under one roof as a “one-stop-heritage-shop”.
The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art, helping museums to buy and show great art for everyone. Following the launch of the Treasure Act (1996), the museums service has received a growing number of applications for funding towards acquisitions of items of treasure.
The Treasure Plus Funding Programme, supported by The Headley Trust, is designed to help museums of all sizes make the most of their treasure and archaeological artefacts and bring these objects to life through new displays, interpretation and public engagement programmes, so that they are best used, enjoyed and appreciated by the public.
