Museum’s £1.7m makeover
COUNCIL and heritage bosses are celebrating after securing a £1.7m lottery grant for one of the jewels in the Valley’s crown.
Rossendale council worked in partnership with The Whitaker, in Rawtenstall, to secure the National Lottery Heritage Fund award to convert the former barn and stables. A further £189,950 of matched funding was provided by the council.
The grant will see the area transformed and enable the café and bar to be relocated - and in turn double the space the museum currently enjoys.
The vacated rooms will once more showcase artifacts from the museum’s extensive collection and will provide for a themed
area reflecting more modern history, including memorabilia from the heyday of The Astoria Ballroom.
Delighted managing director Carl Bell said the theme of the expansion is nature, society and creativity.
He said: “We had a great belief in the whole wider project from day one and this has partly kept us going for years. The other part has been our tremendous staff, volunteers and of course our visitors and local community. Thank you all so much and thank you to the National Lottery players. This is another big step in the renaissance of the Valley - watch this space.”
The development has been two and a half years in the planning and crucial to its success are plans to capture local stories of how residents came to live in Rossendale, both those who moved from Ireland and more recently families who have come from South Asia.
Council leader Alyson Barnes said the expansion and development of The Whitaker and its adjacent buildings “offers amazing potential for the museum to become the focal point for tourists coming into Rossendale”.
She added: “As they will also be working to promote and encourage visitors to go on to explore the many other attractions that the Valley has to offer, this can only help to also boost the economies of nearby towns.
“What was once just a museum has become so much more.
“I praise the time, effort and vision of everyone who has been associated with The Whitaker’s development.”
The new space will incorporate a large catering kitchen and an event space for functions, films and much more. It is hoped the renovation will be complete by August 2020.
Project manager Stephen Anderson, chairman of Valley Heritage, is both delighted and relieved.
He said: “I believe it is an exceptional project. This is a project that I am incredibly proud of and it will be a major boost to the whole of Rossendale and that is very important.”