TWO of Liverpool’s top attractions that welcome millions of tourists every year will close to make way for a £58million renovation project.
The Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool will close to undergo a huge multi-million-pound revamp.
The Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool will close for three years[/caption]
Both waterfront museums are popular with holidaymakers, with millions of visitors flocking through their doors every year.
In 2023/24, more than 2.5million people visited Liverpool’s Maritime Museum while roughly 390,000 tourists headed to the International Slavery Museum.
The welcome space inside the Maritime Museum, which first opened to the public in 1986, will be improved.
Improvement work on the International Slavery Museum, which opened in 2007 to mark 200 years of British legislation to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, has yet to be revealed.
The museums will also be connected to each other under the plans.
Planning permission was obtained back in October, with the Labour government approving £10million worth of funding earlier this week.
This brings the total cost of the huge makeover to £58million.
A computer-generated image shows the facade of the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool.
While the outside looks broadly similar to its current design, the right of the image depicts a new building with a stairwell, which could be where the buildings become linked.
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios was appointed as architect for the project last year.
It is not yet known when the museums will close to the public and whether both will close at the same time.
Speaking about the ambitious project, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said: “Through investing in these critical cultural projects we can empower both local leaders and people to really tap into their potential and celebrate everything their hometown has to offer.
With Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy adding, “This support will empower our cultural organisations to continue playing an essential role in developing skills, talent and high-quality careers in every corner of the UK.”
Elsewhere in Liverpool, a new £96million train station is set to open in the city’s Baltic Triangle.
The city’s Baltic Triangle has been likened to New York City’s meatpacking district and it has been named one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the UK by Time Out.
Construction work on Liverpool Baltic Train Station is set to start later this year.
Plenty of other museums across the UK will also benefit from huge renovation projects in the coming years, including the British Museum.
The London-based museum is getting a £1billion face-lift, which will see its entrances renovated, areas revamped and new interactive galleries installed.
And Wiltshire Museum is also getting a £1million revamp to restore the Devizes Assize Court attraction, which has been derelict since the 1980s
Sun Travel’s Favourite Museums in the UK
THERE are plenty of great museums dotted across the country, here are some of our favourites.
Victoria & Albert Museum – Sophie Swietochowski, Assistant Travel Editor
London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, which dates back to 1852, simply oozes history from the building itself to what’s in it, but that’s not to say its exhibitions are dated.
A free “songbook trail” from mega star, Taylor Swift, launches next week, plus there are installations from some of the most renowned artists in the world.
I can easily spend a whole day getting lost in its ancient collections tucked away in a hidden corner – sometimes it can feel like you have the whole place to yourself
Beamish – Ryan Gray, Travel Reporter
Beamish is unlike any typical “museum” in that it’s basically a fully-functioning town in County Durham, offering a genuine look at what life would have been like for people during various stages throughout the past.
It has a miners’ pit village, farms, shops, a pub, a school and even a dentist among its businesses and reconstructions, all created to provide people with an experience as close to stepping back in time as possible.
Recently, it has expanded to include a new 1950s town, which includes a toy shop, a welfare hall and a cinema that has been painstakingly brought in and rebuilt from Ryhope in Sunderland.
If I’m ever up in the north east, I try and make sure I pay a visit to Beamish to make the most of my annual ticket. It’s especially great at Christmas when the skating rink is up and carol singers can be found gathering in the town’s bandstand, along with brass bands if you turn up on the right day.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery – Hope Brotherton, Travel Reporter
It’s safe to say I fell in love with art, history and culture at this Birmingham-based museum.
Following a four-year closure, the museum partially reopened to the public with an exhibition on Victorian Radicals featuring a collection of paintings from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
You can bet the next time I visit my hometown, I will be wandering through the exhibition.
Meanwhile, this UK town is home to one of the world’s best car museums.
And this world class UK museum reopened earlier this year.
It is not yet known when the museums will close and whether they will close at the same time[/caption]
