Tullie museum set to display 100,000 new historical items after receiving £4.4m investment

  • ITV Border's reporter Katie Templeton-Knight visits one of the region's biggest museums to find out about their redevelopment.

More than 100,000 historical items will go on display at Tullie in a multi-million pound redevelopment, allowing the museum to 'offer a lot more' to visitors.

Tullie, a museum and art gallery in Carlisle, has received £4.4m of investment from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to help improve and expand their facility.

Breaking Down Barriers, known as phase three of Project Tullie, will include a new learning and gallery space for visitors to connect with the history of Carlisle.

Amy Walker, Head of Strategy and Capital Programmes, says the new investment will enable the museum to offer 40,000 visits per year.

She said: "We're going to be able to do what we do, but do a lot more and do it better. We have this great award-winning learning engagement programme but we really do struggle with the spaces that we have, they are dated.

"We're really looking forward to being able to provide more for school and community visitors."

The 100,000 collection items, which are currently in storage, will be revealed through a new approach known as the 'Active Gallery'.

Credit: ITV Border.

Andrew Mackay, Museum Director, said: "The stores at the moment are crammed full of fine art collections, natural science collections, archeology collections and you'll see loads of them on display.

"That's part of the feedback and consultation, we took people into the stores, they loved it. They want to experience it, they don't want us to hide things behind doors, they want to see it all upfront.

"The walls will be surrounded by objects and in the middle of the space's there will be lots of activities for people to engage with the collections.

"We have a working title at the moment of 'Active Gallery' because it's going to be full of collections and stories, full of Carlisle and Cumbria history."

The museum is expected to remain open to the public until the next phase of renovations in 2025.

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