Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre has won £589,545 to carry out essential building works which will help to protect its many artworks.
The money, awarded under thegovernment’s Cultural Investment Fund, will pay to repair and renew rooflights, guttering and rainwater pipes, as well as internal repairs to plasterwork. The works will enable the reopening of some currently closed gallery spaces.
Work is scheduled to start in the autumn. In order to keep the museum open, it would be phased so that only areas of the building directly affected by the work would be closed off to the public.
Bury Art Museum opened in 1901 and was purpose-built to display the Wrigley Collection of Victorian art gifted to the people of Bury; a condition of the gift was that a gallery was built to house it. It is a Grade II listed building, situated in Bury’s conservation zone and houses the borough’s treasures.
The Wrigley Collection contains work of influential British painters (early 1800s) including works by JMW Turner, John Constable, Sir Edwin Landseer and Sir George Clausen. The collection is of international significance.
