UK heritage sites to receive £98m lottery cash boost

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/may/20/uk-heritage-sites-lottery-funding

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The world’s largest medical collection and the groundbreaking Lovell telescope are among heritage sites set to receive almost £100m in lottery funding to preserve Britain’s rich scientific and technological history.

As well as refurbishing one of the country’s earliest factories, millions of pounds will also go towards supporting a new railway museum, the restoration of Lincoln Cathedral, and a unique “save our sounds” project to digitise birdsong, accents and other significant recordings. In all, nine projects will receive £98m.

Jodrell Bank, home to the Grade I-listed Lovell telescope, and the only remaining site in the world to showcase the entire story of the development of radio astronomy, will receive £12.1m towards a new exhibition pavilion. Prof Brian Cox, the physicist and TV presenter, said it was the “standout icon of UK science and engineering” and his visits as a child had inspired him to become a scientist. “This new project will inspire many more young people to carry on our great tradition of science and engineering,” he said.

The Science Museum in London will receive £8m for a major redevelopment of its medicine galleries, showcasing 3,000 objects showing the transformation in medicine and health over 500 years, and due to be completed in 2019.

Derby Silk Mill’s Museum of Making, on the foundations of the Lombe brothers’ 18th-century silk thread plant – the world’s first fully mechanised factory – is to get £9.3m. The Great Central Railway’s Mainline – Bridging the Nation project, to create a heritage railway museum in Leicester incorporating a unique double-track line between the city and Loughborough, has been awarded £9.9m.

There is £9.5m for the British Library’s project to digitise the country’s rare, unique and most vulnerable sound recordings and put them online. Recordings range from interviews with Kindertransport child refugees from Nazi Germany to extinct birdsong, accents and dialects to music including British jazz and skiffle.

Dorset County Museum, whose collection includes about 3 million archaeological items as well as textiles including the red dress owned by Thomas Hardy’s sister Kate, thought to have inspired the one described in his novel Tess of the d’Urbevilles, is to get £10.3m.

Another two museums, the Geffrye in east London, based in 300-year-old almhouses, and the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, will receive £11m and £15m. Lincoln Cathedral, on Historic England’s at-risk register, will receive £12m towards refurbishments.

Sir Peter Luff, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said the money was being used “to tell the spellbinding story of the UK’s scientific and industrial excellence”.

The culture secretary, John Whittingdale, said: “I’m thrilled that nine exciting projects across England and Scotland will benefit from this significant £98m investment. Whether it’s a new railway museum in Leicester, Lovell telescope at Cheshire’s Jodrell Bank, or saving the UK’s most vulnerable sound recordings at the British Library, these grants will not only make a lasting difference to local areas and the UK’s wider heritage, but will also use culture to inspire young people to learn more about science and technology for generations to come.”