Salisbury Museum re-opens fully for first time in over a year
The museum's galleries have been redeveloped in a £5.1 million project
For the first time in over a year, Salisbury Museum will be fully open from today.
The Cathedral Close venue's been partially closed since early 2023, as the £5.1 million 'Past Forward' project has been carried out.
The project has been funded by £3.9 million of National Lottery Heritage Fund grants, along with £1.2 million of donations from individuals, trusts and foundations.
This includes the Devenish Bradshaw family, Garfield Weston Foundation, Headley Trust, Foyle Foundation, Wolfson Foundation, Linbury Trust and the Charles Hayward Foundation.
It reopens today (Saturday 13th July) with a free celebration event.
The museum's marketing and membership officer, Jenny Mearns, said they're excited to re-open the entire venue.
She said: "This is accumulation of years of work on this project and the past forward redevelopment project. So yeah, we're really excited to finally be able to have the museum fully open and all of the new galleries open as well and all of our objects on display."
The new developments include the Devenish Bradshaw Salisbury Gallery, which will tell Salisbury's story from 1220 to the present day.
There's also a ceramics gallery in the King's Room, which has been refurbished to tell a 'potted history' of ceramics in Britain. This also includes a ceramic mug of Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Chris Witty, with his famous pandemic catchphrase 'Next slide please' on it.
There's also a natural history gallery which explores the issues of bio-diversity and climate change, as well as learning and event spaces.
Jenny said the re-opening of the museum will be a boost for the local community.
"I think having these galleries developed and now fully open, this will really be able to give something back to Salisbury and the Community and the surrounding areas and then it also links up with our partnership museums with the Wessex Museums Museum Partnership," she said.
Jenny added: "It will really boost the economy and it will just be an additional exciting attraction that Salisbury will have have to offer its local people, the communities, but also, of course tourism, because Salisbury itself is a tourist destination."