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06

Aug 2021

Last Updated: 06/08/2021
Community
Community

Knaresborough Museum goes for more funding to open next year

by Suzannah Rogerson

| 06 Aug, 2021
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Plans for the town's first museum have been delayed due to covid but those behind the project say they're busy bringing exhibits together ahead of the planned opening next year.

the-proposed-site-of-knaresborough-museum
The proposed site of the Knaresborough Museum.

The Knaresborough Museum is taking shape as the team creating it has applied for an extra £60,000 in grant funding.

The Knaresborough Museum Association (KMA) already raised £43,000 earlier this year to get plans underway but it is now going for more funding to make them a reality.

It plans to open the first Knaresborough Town Museum in the former Castle Girls’ School in Castle Yard.

The plans for the building include a reception and shop, permanent and temporary display areas, an education space, toilets and wheelchair access.

The KMA had previously hoped to have the museum open for the end of the year but covid has delayed negotiations with Harrogate Borough Council.

The KMA said it is anticipating signing the lease for the building "soon" and opening in 2022.

Association chair Kathy Allday said:

"It is all happening on the Museum front! Knaresborough Museum Association are now working with geology, archaeology and social history museums around the country to bring artefacts back to Knaresborough."




Work is currently underway to bring its prehistory and geology display together. The plan is to display fossils of the now extinct animals that roamed the town 300 million years ago.

A programme of archaeological surveys have also started in the Abbey Road and Spitalcroft areas. The KMA volunteers are working with  academics from Leeds, York and America.

All the surveys are to create a medieval exhibit which will display a model of the Trinitarian priory and artefacts from the 13th century.



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Other exhibits will see the reconstruction of Marigold's Boat so visitors can sit and learn about the town rom the Victorian era to the 1960s.

Local children are also getting involved in a film to tell the story of wartime in Knaresborough and the history of the Olde Chemiste Shoppe.

Local residents have the chance to ask questions about the museum and its plans at its Pop Up Museum event for the FEVA festival. Volunteers will be based at St Mary's Church Hall on August 14 and 15.