Norton Priory Museum & Gardens and Halton Borough Council have received a confirmed grant of £3.7m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for the project, Monastery to Museum 900.
The priory is the best excavated monastic site in Europe and the project aims to preserve and restore the 12th century priory undercroft, exhibit the full breadth of the museum’s extensive collections and interpret the site’s 900 year history.
With the grant the site can, for the first time, fully realise its potential as a tourist destination in Cheshire as well as continuing locally with its many community programmes within Halton.
Architectural plans for the redeveloped museums have already been progressed and can be seen on Norton Priory’s website (www.nortonpriory.org). They show
the increased exhibition spaces that will allow many more objects from the museum’s collection to be displayed for the very first time, along with national loans. Modern facilities and a new café will also much improve the visitor experience. A new entranceway will better orientate visitors and put the medieval remains at the heart of the new centre. In the undercroft, the 12th century stonework will be repointed and the colourful Victorian floor restored to its former glory.