North Hertfordshire Museum to gain £3m publicly accessible storage facility in Letchworth
The new venue is set to provide stable environmental conditions for artefacts, which is necessary for their conservation
North Hertfordshire Museum will move its off-site collections into a new purpose-built storage facility in Letchworth by 2027, safeguarding over a million items and opening them up for public access.
The £3m project, supported across the council, is set to replaces the current Hitchin store, which was only ever intended as a temporary solution in the 1990s but is now overcrowded and unsuitable for conservation.
Cultural Services Manager Ros Allwood said: “What you don’t want is to have something that gets very hot in summer and very cold in winter, that can damage the objects and our job in the museum is to look after them for future generations.”
She described the council’s approval for the project as “really exciting” after decades of requests.
The current store lacks the environmental stability needed to preserve rare and fragile items, which include the world’s oldest football collection, Roman bones used in medical and population research, and the County Herbarium – a record of plant life dating back to 1885.
The facilities will also be made accessible and inclusive.
The collection also holds local archives, such as historic editions of The Comet newspaper, militia records, and planning documents.
The new facility will not only meet museum accreditation standards — enabling the venue to host high-profile exhibitions such as The Snowman, Paddington and Rembrandt — but will also welcome visitors, volunteers, school groups, and researchers.
Cllr Tamsin Thomas, Executive Member for Enterprise, said: “The current facility is not suitable and the district’s collection is at risk.
“The new facility will mean the items are kept at a stable temperature and in a suitable environment all year round, and will also mean we can unlock the district’s treasures and facilitate visitors, including schoolchildren.”
The museum’s collection has international research value.
A PhD student from Australia is currently studying Roman skeletons from Baldock, analysing tooth enamel to discover details about diet, sex, and health in Roman Britain.
Located on Brand Street, Hitchin, North Hertfordshire Museum opened in 2019 after the merger of the former Hitchin and Letchworth Garden City museums.
It houses collections from across the district, including prehistoric flints, archaeology from the Iron Age and Roman periods, natural history, social history, and rare sporting memorabilia such as Stanley Matthews’ football boots and Bert Trautmann’s neck brace from the 1956 FA Cup Final.
Ros Allwood added: “We have some special flints that were made by people who were before the Neanderthals and they were walking through Hitchin and possibly settling briefly in Hitchin.
“So we've got, we've got a lot of important archaeology, a lot of Roman and Iron Age archaeology that people come to see.
“We have Natural History, we've got social history, we've got the Queen Mother's christening gown on display because the Queen Mother grew up in in Saint Paul's Warden, which is in North Hertfordshire, so it's in our patch.”
The museum is free and open Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30am–4.30pm, and Sundays, 11am–3pm.
It features a café, shop, and a changing programme of exhibitions — currently Horrible Histories illustrations by Martin Brown, with an ’80s nostalgia show planned for winter.