BRIDPORT Museum has achieved full museum accreditation.

Accreditation is managed by Arts Council England, the body responsible for setting the nationally agreed set of standards.

Bridport Museum first achieved accreditation in 2009, but it is reviewed approximately every three years. Museums are judged on how well they look after their visitors and audiences, how well they look after their collections and how well they manage their overall organisation. The Museum had to submit lots of paperwork to be assessed, including their Collections Development Policy, and to answer lots of questions about the work that they undertake.

Curator Emily Hicks said: “We are delighted to have achieved accreditation once again, as it feels like our hard work is acknowledged as being of a good standard.

“The only area they recommended for improvement was to deal with our backlog in documentation. We are already working hard on this – we estimate that there are over 50,000 items in our collection, so cataloguing each one is quite a task, and is primarily done by volunteers.”