At our September Trustee meeting, we were delighted to award nine grants coming to a total of £204,000 from our Preservation and Conservation programme. Below we share a little about each grant and its purpose.
Women’s Aid – Armagh Down provides support and accommodation to women and children impacted by domestic and/or sexual abuse. They are aiming to expand their services by renovating an adjacent historic building which has lain vacant for over a decade. Our grant of £25,000 will help to refurbish the Georgian windows.
The Garden Museum explores and celebrates the art, history and design of British gardens. The Museum has an opportunity to restore Grade II* Benton End, Suffolk – once home to the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing set up by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines – and to create a new learning, art and horticultural centre. Our grant of £45,000 (£15,000 pa over three years) will help fund a project director to lead on the development.
Crystal Palace Park Trust was set up in 2018 to protect and restore the 80-hectare Crystal Palace Park. Our grant of £30,000 is towards the restoration of the extraordinary and ever popular Grade I listed dinosaur sculptures. They were designed by the pioneering palaeontologist Professor Sir Richard Owen in 1854 and were the first attempt to render dinosaurs scientifically and at full scale.
Lancashire Mining Museum is located on the Astley Green Colliery site. The former mine is home to Lancashire’s only surviving headgear and engine house. Our grant of £25,000 is for repairs to the Winding Engine House, to stabilise the building and prevent further damage.
Stow Maries Great War Aerodrome in Essex houses the most complete surviving group of Royal Flying Corps buildings on a First World War aerodrome in the country. The site was largely untouched after it went out of military use in 1919. Our grant of £7,000 will help towards expert investigations of the site to inform longer-term development plans.
The Scottish Fisheries Museum tells the story of Scottish fishing from the earliest times to the present. It houses a nationally recognised collection of vessels and artwork, in the fishing harbour of Anstruther in Fife. The museum buildings are weather-worn and in need of repair. Our grant of £15,000 will go towards roof repairs of the 18th Century, A-listed Merchant House building, stabilising it and making it wind and watertight.
Kingswood Arts CIC plans to offer a range of free and affordable creative activities at Kingswood House, a community and arts centre, located in a Southwark housing estate. Our grant of £13,000 will help fund a condition survey and works to the interior of the Grade II former home of the inventor of Bovril and locally still known as Bovril Castle.
Kingswood Arts, Credit: Chelsea Pineda
Sir John Soane’s Museum houses a large collection of sculptures, drawings, architectural models and paintings, including William Hogarth’s 18th century showpiece of social satire, A Rake’s Progress. Our grant of £15,000 – will support the conservation costs of one painting in the series.
The Silk Heritage Trust was created to preserve the rich silk heritage of Macclesfield’s industrial past. The Trust manages several buildings and collections including Paradise Mill. Our grant of £29,000 is for a condition survey of the Cartwright & Sheldon archive, the last company to own Paradise Mill and the last in the UK to weave silk on Jacquard handlooms alongside urgent structural works to the archive space.
If you’d like to learn more about these grants or any of our grants, you can read more on Recent Grants Awarded.
Feature image – Crystal Palace Park Trust