Tonight:
9°c
Lottery awards £5m for maritime museum wing
Elizabeth Hopkirk, Evening Standard06.10.08
The National Maritime Museum was today awarded £5 million for a major new wing which will allow it to display more from its archive of British naval history.
The money from the Heritage Lottery Fund will transform the Greenwich institution with galleries, digital resources and a new entrance.
It comes after the £20 million donation from Israeli shipping magnate Sammy Ofer and means the museum is now 90 per cent of the way towards securing the £35 million cost of the wing. Work will start next year and is due to finish in 2012.
The centrepiece of the wing will be an exhibition space where the museum can better present its collection of historic documents including a luncheon menu salvaged from the Titanic.
Reader views (2)
Should be plenty of bored builders around offering a discount to bridge the funding gap, or will they following the estate agents who claim they need to charge more because they are making less?
- Rachelle, London
This is a very welcome addition to the generous private donation of £20 million. The Country's maritime heritage suffered a major blow last year with the destruction of the Cutty Sark in the heart of the Greenwich Maritime World Heritage Site.
The funds to make the improvements as described will form a lasting legacy and the completion of the works to both the Museum and Cutty Sark by 2012 in time for the Olympics is fortuitous.
More generally the improvements to WHS Greenwich will help attract visitors from other overcrowded areas in London.
I understand that the Mayor is looking at ways to improve access to WHS Greenwich. The recent addition of the frequent Thames Clipper service from Central London to Greenwich (and The 02) has greatly added to the tourism along the Thames. Hopefully by 2012 it will become commonplace for Oyster Card users to also be able to use their travel cards on the river service. Plans have been mooted to extend the river service to Central London and beyond to Richmond.
- Damien Vaugh, Greenwich Millenium Village
