Heritage Awards 2008

A war time weekend, celebrations of village history and a scheme to restore canal locks are among the finalists in a county museums award.

Volunteers and museum professionals from Leicestershire and Rutland will attend the County Council’s Heritage Awards on 24th July, to find out which local museums have won.

Many of these museums rely on grants and donations to survive and all contribute to the preservation and display of Leicestershire’s rich and varied heritage. Most are run entirely by volunteers.

Details of all the finalists are in the tables below.

Best Project

Swannington Heritage Trust	Building of the Neaverson Education Centre and Workshop	In order to provide much needed additional workshop space and improve facilities for visitors, including parties of school children, the trust’s volunteers designed and constructed a new building. This features a rain water harvesting facility. It was funded by a bequest from and dedicated to the memory of industrial historian Peter Neverson.
Foxton Inclined Plan Trust (Canal Museum)	Restoration of Foxton Locks	A £3 million HLF funded project to restore and enhance the Foxton Locks Site. The Trust was involved at all stages but particularly in the interpretation. Work included improvements to access, removing trees from the inclined plane, restoring the bottom dock, restoring the top canal arm to the lift and interpreting the site. The Museum was working with British Waterways and the Foxton Locks Partnership on this project.
Sir John Moore Foundation, Appleby Magna	Creation of 'The Cellar' (Conversion into a bar to fund the foundations activities)	The Cellar was created in 2007. It is used for community events and private functions. It has raised a significant amount of money for the Foundation, all of which has been put back into community events and activities. Te Cellar makes a significant contribution to the sustainability of the building, heritage centre and foundation.
Kegworth Museum	Creation of Heritage Packs using archive photographs and other materials.	Six themed education packs have been created: World War One, World War Two, Childhood, Leisure, Working Lives and Transport. Each pack contains 30 – 50 laminated A4 copies of photographs and documents from the museums collections. They also include an index page and a form to gather further information for the museum’s archive.
Diseworth Heritage Trust	Project to engage school pupils and village residents with the new Heritage Centre and history of the village.	Working with MLA and the two primary schools in Diseworth and Long Whatton to plan cross curricular studies and oral history resources, linking with older people and other local residents, to help plan a village trail, creating an exhibition for the opening of the Heritage Centre and creating an awareness of the usefulness of museum resources.
Measham Museum	Measham History Word search Books	A simple project to get local children interested in the history of the village, and hopefully in the Museum and its future in the village.

Best Exhibition

Castle Donington Museum	The Way we Were - An Exhibition for 2008/9	The exhibition covers aspects of life in Castle Donington from the mid 1800s to 1970. They show how the village centre has changed, the various pubs, shops and hotels that have come, and in some cases, gone, the coming of piped water, gas and electricity. Domestic life and fashion are well represented.
Whitwick Historical Group	A celebration of Whitwick - An exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of Whitwick Historical Group.	This weekend long exhibition was held in the Methodist hall in Whitwick to celebrate 25 years of Whitwick historical Group. All members of the community were invited to join in this celebration and remember that today is tomorrow’s history. We aimed to educate and inform people about Whitwick past and present, involve the local community 9including schools and community groups) and gain addition information for the group’s archives.

Best Event

Castle Donington Museum	Flying the Flag - An exercise in advocacy	A special “open day” to raise the profile of the Museum and to bring it, and the work and aims of the Trust, to the attention of relevant people and organisations.
Sir John Moore Foundation, Appleby Magna	Appleby at War & War Time Afternoon	Part of Museums & Galleries Month, this event included a war-time gala, and an afternoon tea to help people discover this gem of a building, that was used by the home guard, who amongst other things, hosted dances for the locals, during the second world war.

For further details about the awards, please contact the community museums officer on 0116 267 0050 or museums@leics.gov.uk.

Heritage Awards 2008

further information