Canterbury Royal Museum & Art Gallery with Buffs Regimental Museum
Canterbury Royal Museum and Art Gallery
High Street
Canterbury
UK
Tel: + 44 (0)1227 452 747
Email: museums@canterbury.gov.uk
Now closed to the public for major redevelopment. Due to re-open in the summer of 2011.
Royal Museum and Art Gallery with Buffs Regimental Museum
The art gallery is the major space in the area for the visual arts. The annual programme is wide ranging, with exhibitions of both contemporary and historical work. This gallery is now closed for the redevelopment period.
The Buffs Gallery at the Beaney Institute in Canterbury closed to the public on Saturday 8 November 2008 as part of preparatory work leading to the closure of the whole building for restoration and refurbishment.
The museum collections of The Buffs (the former Royal East Kent Regiment) belong to the National Army Museum, as a result of the ownership transfer made by Buffs regimental trustees in 2000.
Therefore, National Army Museum staff were be responsible for the professional packing of the collections and move to the museum's London base, where their conservators have begun the lengthy job of cleaning and conservation to be ready for the Beaney reopening in 2012.
The amount of time this specialist work will take is one of the reasons why The Buffs Gallery was among the first of the displays in the Beaney to be closed. There is also a considerable amount of work to be carried out to the space currently occupied by the Buffs, and this could not be started safely while the collections were in place.
Canterbury City Council's Deputy Leader, Cllr Jean Law, said: New displays about The Buffs, incorporating collections on loan from the National Army Museum, will be part of the reopened Beaney, so the removal is only temporary.
We are delighted to be working in partnership with the National Army Museum, and to have their conservation expertise to enhance this collection. The displays have significant relevance for local residents and have brought enjoyment to thousands of people over the years, and we thank the museum for that.
Director of the National Army Museum, Dr Alan Guy, said: The NAM Council, its governing body, looks forward to continuing to work with Canterbury City Council and all our friends in the city to tell the story of the Buffs in Canterbury.
Archaeology work set to start at Beaney (October 2009)
Archaeologists are gearing up to move on from excavating at the Marlowe Theatre site and will start work soon at the rear of the Beaney.
Although this area has been much disturbed, not least when the Beaney was originally built in the 1890s, Canterbury Archaeological Trust still expects to record further fascinating information about previous buildings and ways of life going back to Roman times, if not before that.
The archaeologists previously made preliminary explorations so that they could work with the architect team on designs, which will mitigate the impact of the Beaney extension on any buried archaeology that is found when the more extensive investigations take place.
Once the 'dig' starts, information about the discoveries will be posted on the Beaney website at www.futurebeaney.com
While the Beaney's services have been relocated for the duration of the closure period to 2011 - at 35 Pound Lane for the library and at the Museum of Canterbury in Stour Street for museum collections - there is still project work continuing that aims to keep people in touch with the Beaney's heritage collections.
'Hungry for Heritage', an outreach project that was supported by a £24,700 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), was the idea of local young people who wanted to know what would happen to the collections once the Beaney closed.
The young people, from Canterbury High School, The Orchard School, Canterbury College and the charity Scrine Foundation, worked with local artists and Beaney staff to create their own representations of museum objects for display in the city's independent cafés.
Lead Artist, Neil Kelly, said: The project has given hundreds of local young people the opportunity to be inspired by the museum's objects, and consider how they can express this, creatively, to others.
Find out more about the project at www.hungry4heritage.co.uk.
Photo Copyright © Peter Collinson 1995, All rights reserved
