The exciting and ambitious plans for the new development will provide additional galleries, new open access stores / study facilities and dedicated spaces for life-long learning, education outreach services and arts development programmes. It will also provide a more prominent entrance to the Art Gallery & Museum and create a ‘new gateway’ to Cheltenham’s oldest building, medieval St. Mary’s Church, through the inclusion of a pedestrian route from the south, Clarence Street through to Chester Walk.
The scheme will further create a ‘first stop’ for visitors to Cheltenham with the re-location of the Tourist Information Centre, and a focal point for the development of a ‘cultural quarter’ in the town, with an expanded events / performance space and a new larger ground floor café and shop.
Today the HLF announced that Building for a New Future had successfully got through the first round application stage, achieving a first-round pass for a £750,000 grant for the art gallery & museum with a final decision expected to be towards the end of the year.
Jane Lillystone, Museum & Arts Manager, said: ‘We are extremely delighted to have secured this first round pass and their endorsement of a project which is so important for the region and spans our activities as both a museum and gallery. We will now actively be working to develop our project to a second-round application, which we hope to submit later this year.
This news also comes at an important time for the fundraising campaign, as we have now achieved £4 million in committed funding from Cheltenham Borough Council, the Summerfield Trust, The Monument Trust, Friends of Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, and most recently, Garfield Weston Foundation, with the outcome of several significant applications expected over the coming few months. Our target is to reach £5.5 million by the end of this year for construction of the new building to start for early 2011.”
Andrew McKinlay, Cabinet member for Sport and Culture, Cheltenham Borough Council, said: “I am delighted by the news. The support of the Heritage Lottery Fund is a major step in progressing the re-development of the Art Gallery & Museum into a world class modern venue that Cheltenham can be proud of.”
Notes to editors:
* A first-round pass means the project meets HLF criteria for funding and that it has potential to deliver high-quality benefits and value for Lottery money. The application was in competition with other supportable projects, so a first-round pass is an endorsement of outline proposals. However, a first-round pass does not guarantee the applicant will receive a grant although the chances of receiving a grant are high the second-round application will still be in competition for funding, and no money is set aside at this stage. Having been awarded a first-round pass, the project now has up to two years to submit fully developed proposals.
Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage. HLF has supported more than 28,800 projects, allocating over £4.3billion across the UK, including £404.7 million of grants to 3,015 projects in the South West.
Website: www.hlf.org.uk.
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum
CAG&M was established between 1898 (gallery) and 1907 (museum) and is an important public facility for the town, county and region. Its wide-ranging collections include:
- A nationally Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection and the Emery Walker library, which includes drawings and designs by many important craft and industrial-scale makers, from Gimson to Gordon Russell and Robert Welsh. It also includes the internationally-important Emery Walker Library, which includes designs for many typefaces.
- Local history collections: material relating to Cheltenham’s role as a spa and industrial town, including its unique role in the history (and present) of the aircraft industry;
- Fine art: important 17th-19th C Dutch/Belgian works; works from Renaissance to 21st C, many with local connections
- Cheltenham and the wider world: includes items relating to Antarctic explorer Edward Wilson (Cheltenham born and educated), ethnographical and other items brought back by travellers;
Based in central Cheltenham, CAG&M occupies the first floor of a Victorian building (its original home; Cheltenham Library occupies the ground floor) and a small 1989 extension. Open 7 days a week, all year-round, with monthly “late Thursdays”, CAG&M receives over 65,000 visits annually and works with a further 6,000 people outside the building. Admission is free and visitors/users of all ages come from Cheltenham, the Cotswolds, surrounding regions, London, the rest of the UK and overseas. CAG&M works with a wide range of artists and organisations, including galleries, museums and heritage organisations ranging from national organisations to the recently-established Gordon Russell and Court Barn museums in the Cotswolds.
The development is needed due to lack of space and display facilities (currently up to 70% of CAG&M’s collections are in on or off-site store) which hampers access to the collections, the work of curators, schools, outreach and other community work and collections-based and other temporary exhibitions.
The main areas in the new development which will address these issues are:
- A new picture gallery (138 sq.m.): To display paintings (many currently in store) in international standard conservation conditions;
- Improved storage and workshop facilities (240 sq.m.): with international standards of environmental control and storage to safeguard collections and loan objects;
- Open archive and study facilities (118 sq.m.): Purpose-built and dedicated study, archive and display spaces to highest conservation standards, including digital/web access to make previously stored material on CAG&M’s designated Arts and Crafts Movement, Edward Wilson and local history collections available to visitors, historians, researchers and curators.
- Temporary exhibition galleries (297 sq. m.): Flexible space over two floors, including a double-height gallery, which will allow display of large items, e.g. furniture.
- Schools/learning centre (c.76 sq.m.): for primary and secondary schools and groups;
- Facilities for outreach, lifelong learning and arts development work: to include less formal space to display the results of projects carried out at CAG&M or in other locations;
- Improved, fully-accessible visitor facilities: including a larger lift to all floors.
- Cheltenham’s Tourist Information Centre: will be located within the new development.
- A much-needed and appealing pedestrian link to Cheltenham's oldest building, medieval St. Mary's Church (Grade 1).
The overall project budget is just over £6m, including fees and fitting-out. The budget has been carefully managed and scrutinised since the 2005/6 town-wide review of Cheltenham’s cultural sector, co-funded by CBC and Arts Council England. The architects, Berman Guedes Stretton (London and Oxford), were appointed through a RIBA Open Design Competition and their designs, which have been subject to rigorous Value Engineering, have now reached RIBA Stage E.