Brontë Parsonage Receives a Grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund

Good news from the Parsonage:

BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM RECEIVES £50,000 FROM HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND TO SUPPORT NEW DEVELOPMENT

The Brontë Parsonage Museum has been awarded a grant of £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to support a programme of exciting new developments.

The museum has ambitious plans to completely refurbish the historic interiors of the Parsonage over the next two years. This will involve researching and introducing a new decorative scheme to the Parsonage rooms, the renewal of interpretation giving visitors of all ages information about the house and the family, and installing new object cases and displays. The project will also seek to create a greater focus in the museum on Haworth’s history and the social-historical context in which the Brontës lived. As part of this initiative there will be a programme of community activity to involve local people in the project. The Heritage Lottery Fund grant will fund stage 1 of the project which will involve the introduction of new interpretation, object cases and displays and the community programme of events which will begin with a local residents’ free admission day on 15 8 August. (see correction)

The museum, which was home to the famous Brontë family for over forty years, and is where Charlotte, Emily and Anne’s great novels were written, recently completed a major refurbishment to its permanent exhibition space located in an extension to the original Brontë house. The refurbishment was the first major development at the museum in over twenty years and the new exhibition space, Genius: The Brontë Story, which includes the treasures of the museum’s collection as well as fun interactive displays for children, has proved a big hit with visitors. This latest project will see further improvements to the museum.

Fiona Spiers, Head of HLF, Yorkshire and the Humber Region, said:

This fantastic project will really bring the museum’s collections to life for everyone to explore. HLF is dedicated to supporting projects that open up our heritage for locals and visitors to learn about and enjoy.

We are delighted that the Heritage Lottery Fund is supporting us with this work. The Brontës are the heart of Haworth but they were part of a broader community when they lived and wrote here and the museum has an important role in reflecting that and in forging links with the twenty-first century Haworth community. This project will hopefully allow us to work in partnership with that community to reinterpret the Brontës and the Parsonage for the next generation.

Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

Also on the Brontë Parsonage Blog and Yorkshire Post.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum