Craven District Council has received a confirmed National Lottery grant of £1,500,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for the Stories & Treasures of Street & Dale project to completely redevelop Craven Museum, it was announced today.

Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, the project aims to reinvigorate Craven Museum and Exhibition Gallery, bringing it into the 21^st century as an exciting, engaging and sustainable heritage attraction with fantastic new displays, events and education programmes, strengthening the Museum and Skipton Town Hall’s role as a cultural hub for the Craven district.

The project aims to realise the potential of the significant and varied heritage found in the museum’s collections and improve access to them through a complete redesign of the museum, creation of dedicated store and research facilities, improved education programmes and a cataloguing & digitisation project which will result in the collections being made available online for the first time.

The three year project’s plan of activity incorporates essential conservation work and includes opportunities for volunteers and members of the community to actively engage with the museum through skills building in things like artefact digitisation, undertaking research into the collections and providing museum outreach with the team.

Craven Museum was established in 1928 by a group of local collectors and moved to the Victorian Skipton Town Hall in the 1970s after an extension was built at the rear to house it.

Its extensive and important collections have remained in the building since and plans for the museum redevelopment are pivotal to the overall redevelopment and restoration of the Grade 2 listed Town Hall.

Commenting on the award, Councillor Simon Myers said: ”We’re absolutely delighted to have been offered this support thanks to National Lottery players. Our plans for the redevelopment of Craven Museum and the historic Town Hall in which it resides will not only enable more of our community and visitors to access the Craven Museum collections, but will include signposting back out across the district to all of the other fantastic heritage attractions and sites of interest, providing a true cultural hub for Craven.”

David Renwick, Head of HLF Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “It’s brilliant that money raised by National Lottery players can help to transform Craven Museum into an exciting museum fit for the 21st century. This project will strengthen the museum’s role in the community, enable better access to its important local collections and help to preserve the historic Town Hall for generations to come.”