Staff and volunteers at Ruddington’s historic Framework Knitters’ Museum say they’re “super happy” to have received new funding worth £62,925. The cash will be used for urgent structural, chimney, window and roofing repairs, as well as improving the heating and security at the Chapel Street tourist attraction.
The award is part of a £48m national package of additional government support for museums and libraries in the UK from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England.
The museum has already benefitted from extensive previous funding to help with its ambitious recent expansion project, enabling some impressive new visitor facilities which officially opened last November. This latest financial boost will help it to maintain the fabric of the buildings on its site and make further improvements.
“We applied last year for the funding and built the project with input from conservation officers, contractors, architects and quantity surveyors to work out the best solution to some of our maintenance issues” explains the museum’s Manager and Curator Jim Grevatte.
“The funding is going towards areas of the site that the ‘A Right Good Yarn’ project supported by NLHF and FCC could not support – namely repairs to the cottages and frameshops. It’s all the stuff that we can’t do ourselves, i.e. stuff at height and requiring specialist skills. The roofs of both frameshops leak in heavy rain. We have managed this by putting tarpaulins over the knitting frames, but this funding will see a permanent solution.”
Jim says it will allow other improvements, too: “At the same time we are able to insulate both roof spaces and therefore reduce our heating bills and carbon footprint. Many of the windows that were replaced in the 1970s need repair and those that are behind the scenes are having secondary double glazing to reduce heat loss.
“We’ll also be opening up the old skylight to the back to back attic bedroom. While the scaffolding is up, we’ll also be repointing the brickwork and chimneys to keep the weather out for another 50 years. Visitors will see some scaffolding up over the coming months but the museum will remain open as usual.”
Graham Wright via RUDDINGTON.info