The Bristol Museum and Art Gallery is set for a £4 million refurbishment to protect the historic building constructed over a century ago. The Grade-II listed museum is a landmark at the top of Park Street on Queens Road, but needs extensive repairs including to its roof and windows.
Bristol City Council is planning to apply to Arts Council England for just under
£4 million to carry out the refurbishment. The bid was approved by councillors on the strategy and resources policy committee last month.
The museum is owned and operated by the council, housing 2.5 million objects. It was built in 1905 so several parts of the building are ageing with “major defects”. The refurbishment could include roof coverings, drainage, façade repair, doors and windows.
A committee report said: “Protecting the fabric and longevity of the structure will allow the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery to continue as a community resource and civic focal point for Bristol. We aim to make our building more accessible for everyone and engage the community in preserving this listed building and reinterpreting and accessing collections.
“This is a major opportunity to secure significant external funding that is highly unlikely to come from within the council given current financial pressures. The project will also reduce future reactive maintenance costs and avoid the need for piecemeal capital works, offering a more strategic and cost-effective approach.”
Last year the museum was visited by 317,280 people, including Bristol residents and schools. According to the council, the museum and art gallery plays an important role in addressing inequalities in the city, by “providing cultural access to all”. The museum also raises the profile of issues such as the legacy of slavery and the British Empire.
The museum is free to enter and is open 10am to 5pm every day apart from Mondays. The money would come from Arts Council England’s museum estate development fund. The council already received £680,000 from this fund for previous works on the museum, which were completed in March earlier this year. Another recent bid for funding was unsuccessful.
Three smaller museums in Bristol have previously come under threat from budget cuts. Blaise Museum, Georgian House and Red Lodge are also owned and operated by the council, but visitors to these museums are much smaller than the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and the M Shed.
Earlier this year, planned budget cuts were criticised by opposition councillors, and were deferred for another 12 months. The Blaise Museum is an 18th-century mansion in a 65-acre estate. The Red Lodge is an Elizabethan house on Park Row, and the Georgian House was built in the 18th century at the bottom of Brandon Hill.
By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service