A MUSEUM is to get £99,000 to help with it extension.

Beaminster Museum has received a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant for exciting new project ‘Extending Beaminster Museum into the Community’.

This grant, representing 32 per cent of the total cost, will enable the museum to increase its size, activities and the range and age of people and groups who will be able to use the museum.

The grant, made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, will enable a two-storey extension to be built and equipped to so that an increasing number of primary schoolchildren can be accommodated to visit, research and learn from the many educational opportunities within the museum.

There will be room to accommodate groups of adults who wish to research the museum’s many collections. These include fossils, local agriculture, the flax industry, Roman remains, Stone Age artefacts, local schools, and many aspects of the local history.

The museum has about 60 volunteers who do everything needed to run a modern museum. The new funding will enable the volunteers to develop and undertake projects in adult education, visiting and hosting schoolchildren, involvement with the Beaminster Literary and Arts Festival and community events, running memory loss cafes, researching local history and teaching digital and research skills.

The new building and its resources will enable the museum to develop its activities in many aspects of the local culture and community, thus enhancing its role as the cultural heart of the Beaminster area.

Commenting on the grant, Dr Murray Rose chairman of the museum trustees, said “We are thrilled to have received this support thanks to the National Lottery players and are confident the project will solve our space problems for years to come.

"At the same time it will enable us to be a more significant part of the community. We hope to be an influence in the lives of a wide range of people from primary age school children, to active adults who wish to learn and research more of their local history, and to those of a senior age trying to cope with memory loss, who will meet and reminisce in familiar surroundings”.

Stuart McLeod, area director at the National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players we are delighted to support this project which will secure an exciting future for Beaminster Museum, enabling the team to share its heritage and collections with a much wider range of people and also support the local community.”