Beamish Wins Art Fund Museum of the Year 2025

Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, has won the Art Fund Museum of the Year for 2025 and has been presented with £120,000 – the largest museum prize in the world. The 350-acre site impressed the judges away with its ‘joyous, immersive, and unique’ exhibitions.

Beamish’s commitment to preserving local heritage was recognised by the Art Fund, with Rhiannon Hiles, Chief Executive of Beamish, being presented with the award during a ceremony at the Museum of Liverpool.

Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund and chair of the judges for Art Fund Museum of the Year, said: “Beamish is a museum brought to life by people – a joyous, immersive and unique place shaped by the stories and experiences of its community. The judges were blown away by the remarkable attention to detail of its exhibits across a 350-acre site and by the passion of its staff and volunteers.”

Beamish, which opened in 1970, is an open-air museum that brings to life the North East of England’s Georgian, Edwardian, 1940s and 1950s history, through immersive exhibits where visitors engage with costumed staff and volunteers, and experience regional stories of everyday life. In 2024, the museum welcomed over 838,630 visitors and remains the region’s most visited attraction and museum.

For more details follow this link: https://www.beamish.org.uk/news/beamish-wins-120000-art-fund-museum-of-the-year-2025-award/

Edwardian street scene at Beamish. Image courtesy of Beamish, Living Museum of the North.

Tees Valley Museums Consortium Win ‘Best Museum Youth Group’ in Kids Family Friendly Museum Awards 2024

Tees Valley Museums Consortium has won one of this year’s ‘Kids in Museums’ awards for Best Museum Youth Group. The consortium’s Young People initiatives include their Young Producers strand. These are a group of 16-25 year olds who have a say and plan events and exhibitions at their museums. They currently have two active Young Producers groups – based at Hartlepool Art Gallery and Preston Park Museum. Further Young Producers are planned for the Stockton and Darlington Railway route and in Middlesbrough.

The Tees Valley Museums Consortium consists of the museum services of Stockton-on-Tees, Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland. It was formed in 2017 to develop collaborative working for the purpose of delivering better services to the public. The five museum services of Tees Valley Museums Consortium hold extensive collections of art, archaeology, social, industrial and maritime history, as well as a wide array of world cultures. The museums work together to promote pride in the history of the Tees Valley.

Kids in Museums is an award-winning charity dedicated to making museums open and welcoming to all children, young people, and families. They support and champion family friendly organisations through wide-ranging initiatives, including the Family Friendly Museum Awards and Takeover Day. They invite heritage organisations to sign up to their Manifesto, which sets out simple guidelines for making museums easy to reach for all ages. For further details visit their website: www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk

For more details about the Tees Valley Museums Consortium and their Young People initiatives follow this link: https://teesvalleymuseums.org/young-people/

2024 Archaeological Achievement Awards Nominations Open

Nominations are now open for the 2024 Archaeological Achievement Awards. They celebrate excellence in archaeology by awarding a project or individual for the following categories:

  •  Archaeology and Sustainability
  • Early Career Archaeologist
  •  Engagement and Participation
  •  Learning, Training and Skills
  •  Public dissemination or Presentation

You can nominate through the Council for British Archaeology’s webiste via the link here. Past winners have included industrial archaoelogy and heritage sites, and volunteers. The deadline for nominations is 12.00pm, Wednesday 25 September 2024.    

The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) is a leading educational charity dedicated to championing and promoting engagement in archaeology and supporting grassroots archaeologists across the UK. Established in 1944, they have a long history of championing public participation in archaeology (including industrial archaeology), aiming to connect diverse communities with the heritage of our shared past. To find out more follow this link: https://www.archaeologyuk.org/about-us.html

‘The Built Environment Transformed: Textile Lancashire during the Industrial Revolution’ Book wins AIA Award

Geoffrey Timmins’ recent Historic England / Liverpool University Press publication ‘The Built Environment Transformed: Textile Lancashire during the Industrial Revolution’ has been announced as the 2022 joint winner of the Association for Industrial Archaeology’s prestigious Peter Neaverson Award for outstanding scholarship in industrial archaeology. 

Focussing on Lancashire’s textile district during c.1780 – c.1850, the book adopts a case-study based approach with chapters on the mill remains in the Cheesden Valley near Rochdale; Barrow Bridge factory village near Bolton; the former handloom weavers’ colony at Club Houses, Horwich; Preston’s Winckley Square; Eanam Wharf at Blackburn; and the road between Bromley Cross and Edgworth to the north of Bolton. It will be of interest to all those with an interest in England’s industrial heritage and how the resulting changes impacted on the historic environment. Further details can be found here – https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781800856530

Reading Civic Society’s ‘Look Draw Build@Reading Station’ Commended in National Awards

The Thornton Education Trust has commended the ‘Look Draw Build@Reading Station’ schools project, a Reading Civic Society project to engage children in architecture, engineering, and railways, in their Inspire Future Generations Awards 2022. In May 2022, the project, which was aimed at children in Reading Primary Schools, reached approximately 450 children.

The Society worked with Gemma Solanellas, an architect and member of the Civic Society, to help with the project’s delivery, which was funded by the Great Western Railway Community Fund. Haslams Estate Agents were Gold Sponsors, and they, along with Stantec Engineers/Architects, Weston & Co Architects, and Reading Civic Society member Matt Andrews, all assisted the Civic Society in delivering project workshops to 15 classes of year 4-6 children from 9 schools, for a total of 450 children.

When the project was finished, the Civic Society decided to submit it to the Thornton Educational Trust for their “Inspire Future Generations Awards.” Thornton Education Trust (TET) is a charity dedicated to incorporating architecture and urban design into children’s education and providing young people with a voice in their community through youth-led design and community participation.

Shortlisting the award, Thornton Education Trust said: “The project helped the local Reading community allowing some 450 children to connect with architecture, engineering, and railway history. The broad approach of the project helped the children to think critically and creatively about their own communities and enhanced their learning journey outside the classroom. Additionally, the touring exhibition brought to a wider audience awareness of how children can learn through architecture and the public space which surrounds them and what they can achieve with simple materials”. The project was commended for its: ‘Excellent engagement with KS2 students, engaging with them through the means of a video to understand the history of the area and then model making. Students looked totally at ease and seem to enjoy the activity. The models were
of a very high creative standard’.

Further details about the Thornton Education Trust can be found here: https://www.thorntoneducationtrust.org/

Launch of SPAB Heritage Awards for 2022

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) is expanding its awards for 2022 from two to five. These five awards will further recognise the communities that care for historic buildings and the experts who repair them.

The existing SPAB awards – the John Betjeman Award for conservation to faith buildings and the Philip Webb Award, a design competition for student architects – will joined by three new ones: the Buildings Craftsperson of the Year, the Sustainable Heritage Award, and the Best Loved Award. Storm Bespoke Secondary Glazing will be the main, headline, sponsor for the expanded SPAB Heritage Awards, whilst Terra Measurement is the Philip Webb Award sponsor.

For details on how to entre follow this link: https://www.spab.org.uk/about-us/awards/award-sponsors