Plans to revamp Museum of Oxford

Oxford city council seeks heritage grant to treble museum space.

The exhibition space of the Museum of Oxford could treble by 2020 if the city council is successful with its proposal to seek £1.6 million in funding from Britain's Heritage Lottery Fund.

The detailed bid will be submitted in 2017 and, if the financing is granted, construction work would begin in 2018, with the newly expanded and refurbished museum opening by 2020.

The project would cost £2.2 million in total and the revamped museum would include greater exhibition facilities, a learning room, and a “Museum Makers” space to encourage a greater hands-on experience.

Museum officials say the new facility would be a “people's museum”, with exhibitions making use of community stories and artefacts to tell the city's hidden histories.

The museum, which is housed in an 1897 Jacobethan building, currently attracts 75,000 annual visitors and it is run with the help of more than 100 volunteers.

The Museum of Oxford was established in 1975 and it has shared its space with the the city's council offices since 2009. Dedicated to telling the story of Oxford and its people, the museum contains a diverse collection ranging from fragments of Roman pottery and St Frideswide's grave stone to Oliver Cromwell's death mask and the marmalade jar from Scott's mission to the South Pole.

For more details see museum website.