Image: Designs for the Hackney Museum © GuM Studio
A grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund will transform Hackney Museum with new exhibition spaces.
Hackney Council has been awarded a £2.2m grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Designs for the £2.2m modernisation of Hackney Museum have been revealed today, as the Hackney Council-run museum reveals plans to present its historical collections in “bold and exciting new ways”.
The four-year project will require Hackney Museum to close for a year from late 2025, reopening by early 2027. The museum will continue its work through community projects across the borough until its reopening.
Its current displays, which opened in 2002, explore the stories of migration and settlement to the area.
A new permanent exhibition at the museum is to be created, highlighting how the local area has been shaped by 300,000 years of migration and settlement.
Alongside the redesign and redisplay of the permanent exhibition, other changes include a new visitor reception, two temporary exhibition areas, a redeveloped community room, an improved shop, events and teaching spaces, and enhanced digital resources.
The council said local community groups and organisations will play a key role in shaping the redevelopment, “contributing ideas towards permanent and temporary exhibitions, digital content, and skills development programmes.”
Hackney’s Anglo-Saxon longboat. discovered in Springfield Park. will be redisplayed, alongside the replica of the boat.
Remains of a 300,000 year old straight tusked elephant – the world’s largest ever land mammal – discovered in Evering Road, Stoke Newington, will also be displayed.
Caroline Woodley, Mayor of Hackney, welcomed the funding, and said: “Hackney has a rich and diverse history – from its rural past before the 1850s to the housing boom of the late 19th century, the arrival of the railways and industrialisation, through to the devastation of the Blitz during the Second World War, and the borough’s more recent transformations as a 2012 Olympic host borough.”
Cllr Chris Kennedy, Cabinet member for health, adult social care, voluntary sector and culture, said the transformation project “will ensure Hackney Museum can continue to be a vital place for communities, education and inspiration for all residents, and a place for visitors from all over the world to come and find out more about Hackney’s histories.”
Stuart McLeod, Director of England – London and the South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund called the project a “once-in-a-generation redevelopment that will ensure that the borough’s heritage is brought to life in innovative ways, representing the diverse cultures and stories of its community.”
