Biffaward Grant for Interpretation Room and Welcome - Tavistock Museum

By: Tavistock Museum
Added: 08 January 2012

The Tavistock Museum Charitable Trust is pleased to  announce that it has been awarded a grant of £50,000 by Biffaward towards the cost of providing an interpretation room and a welcome area. Both are to be located on the ground floor of the former librarian's building in Court Gate, and will provide a ground level access into the museum from the Guildhall Square. These new facilities are the second of three stages of the proposed museum development. On site building work will be started in June this year, and take approximately three months to complete. It is intended that the new facilities will be fully open to visitors in the spring 2013.

In the new interpretation room visitors will be introduced to the town's principal heritage themes namely the former Great Abbey, the Russell family influence, and the Mining Heritage, with the aid of a new video/DVD system, and wall panel illustrations. The welcome area will have a counter and stewards' area which will allow improved contact and inter-action with visitors. Also a ground level access will encourage many elderly and disabled people, previously put off from entering by the steep staircases, to come into the museum.

Biffaward is a multi-million pound fund that helps to build communities and transform lives through awarding grants to community and environmental projects across the UK. The museum has made its own third-party contribution towards the cost of the project, and in order to raise this money the Museum Management Committee has had a busy year of fundraising. The Committee wishes to thank the many visitors and local people who have helped by charity events, donations left for the second-hand books and magazines on the table outside the museum, and more recently by purchasing the Bedford Cottages DVDs. Also for the very positive support they received when applying for this
grant from the Tavistock Town Council and the Cornish Mining world heritage site team.