The weekly feature rounds up the latest updates in museum appointments, openings, funding and new exhibitions from across the UK.
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Appointments
OneRen has appointed its first head of museums and chief storyteller as the £68.7m Paisley Museum Transformation project enters its final stages. Katrina Thomson will join the leisure and cultural charity responsible for Renfrewshire’s museums and collections, on 20 April 2026.
New ‘chief storyteller’ appointed for reopening Paisley Museum
Openings and closures
Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet in Sheffield has reopened following its winter closure, marking the completion of the two-year Embrace Abbeydale improvement project. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the works have delivered a new welcome hub in two refurbished workers’ cottages, a timber-framed family play area, a sensory site map and industrial soundscapes in the Tilt Forge and Crucible Furnace. The site, which dates to the 1700s and houses the UK’s last complete surviving crucible steel furnace, is free to enter.
The Museum of Youth Culture in Camden has a new opening date after a leak delayed its 2025 plans. The museum, described as the world’s first museum dedicated to the lives of teenagers and young people, will now open on 15th May.
Exhibitions
Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait
National Portrait Gallery | London
Opening: 4 June 2026 – Closing: 6 September 2026
The exhibition marks Marilyn Monroe’s centenary, celebrating her life and work through portraits by photographers and artists including Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, and Milton Greene. It explores Monroe’s collaborative approach to image-making and her creative agency, featuring previously unseen photographs from ‘Life’ magazine taken one day before her death in August 1962. The exhibition examines her enduring influence on popular culture and the generations of artists she has inspired.
Ocean Photographer of the Year
The Historic Dockyard Chatham | Chatham
Opening: 28 March 2026
The exhibition features 116 award-winning images selected from over 15,000 worldwide entries, showcasing marine ecosystems from microscopic life to large wildlife encounters. The collection documents ocean beauty alongside climate change impacts, coral bleaching and human influence on marine environments. Featured photographers include Aaron Sanders, Young Ocean Photographer of the Year 2025, and Jenny Stock, the first woman to win British Underwater Photographer of the Year.
Chariots, Treasure and Power: Secrets of the Melsonby Hoard
Yorkshire Museum | York
The exhibition presents the largest hoard of Iron Age metalwork ever found in the United Kingdom, discovered in 2021 near Melsonby in North Yorkshire. Over 800 objects including chariot fragments, horse harness adornments, weapons and other items are displayed, many fused together in ‘The Block’, an extraordinary amalgamation weighing over 150kg. The hoard, dating from around the time of the Roman conquest and linked to the Brigantes tribe under Queen Cartimandua, reveals connections to Denmark, the Mediterranean and beyond.
The Last Princesses of Punjab: The story of Sophia Duleep Singh and the women who shaped her
Kensington Palace | London
Opening: 26 March 2025 – Closing: 8 November 2026
The exhibition brings together personal photographs, letters, and rarely seen objects to illuminate the life of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, a Punjabi princess, pioneering suffragette, and goddaughter of Queen Victoria. It explores Sophia’s story alongside six royal women who shaped her, including her sisters Catherine and Bamba, her mother Bamba Müller, grandmother Jind Kaur and godmother Queen Victoria. Highlights include a ‘No Vote, No Tax’ banner, Sophia’s handwritten letter to Winston Churchill, and an iconic portrait of Jind Kaur reunited with her earrings for the first time since 1886.
Hurvin Anderson
Tate Britain | London
Opening: 26 March 2026 – Closing: 23 August 2026
The first major survey exhibition of British artist Hurvin Anderson brings together around 80 works spanning his entire career, including never-before-seen paintings. Through colour-drenched landscapes and interiors, Anderson’s work explores themes of belonging and diaspora, weaving between the UK and the Caribbean. The exhibition features his ‘Ball Watching’ series, ‘Barbershop’ series, and the UK debut of monumental work ‘Passenger Opportunity’ 2024-25.
Funding
Hertford Town Council has been awarded £3.5 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a project to renew the grounds of Hertford Castle. The council and its partners, East Herts District Council and Hertfordshire County Council’s Countryside Management Service, will use the funding to deliver a masterplan focused on heritage conservation, biodiversity enhancement, accessibility and community benefit.
Hertford Castle secures £3.5m lottery grant for grounds renewal
