Museums and Galleries

The Canterbury District has many museum and gallery attractions to offer visitors and residents.

News - Council budget proposals for our museum services - clarification

In response to misleading allegations currently circulating in the media that the council is proposing to close three museums this April we have issued a clarification of our position.

Budget proposals for museum services 2010-2012

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Beaney News

Canterbury’s Beaney Art Museum and Library project news

The blue-painted hoardings snaking around the Best Lane carpark, and now across the High Street façade too, give clear indication of major work in progress on the second of Canterbury’s major civic projects – the renewal and extension of Dr Beaney’s Institute. Only a few streets away the new Marlowe Theatre, already ahead with structure, is rising out of the ground.

Excavation completed

Also behind the Beaney, Canterbury Archaeological Trust staff have been busy investigating the ground where the extension is to be built which will provide a second (and more accessible) entrance facing onto Best Lane. Their major excavation has recently been completed, and results are being written up and finds examined and conserved for future display in the building.

Contractors at work

Inside the present building contractors have investigated its fabric to check that it all meets current regulations and is structurally sound. They have uncovered various partitions and claddings to ensure they are free from injurious materials such as Asbestos, and have now protected internal architectural features, woodwork and decorative mouldings against possible damage during the coming repair and construction work.

The interior of the Beaney is quite empty, and without its museum collections and library books for the first time since it opened in 1899, it echoes to every footstep and noise.

The closure story

For the museum’s collection the emptying process was lengthy because of the quantity of material on display, and the added contents of the administration office then housed in part of the basement. Everything in the museum was photographed, condition-checked and listed, and then individually wrapped and packed up for removal by the museum team.

Temporary displays at Museum of Canterbury

Every item had to have a new temporary home, and so had to have its specific destination earmarked in the pre-planning work. The Museum of Canterbury at the Poor Priests’ Hospital in Stour Street was took almost everything of these collections: as much as possible was placed on display, using what had been the temporary exhibitions space to show some of the major works from the paintings collection, with a case of bronzes and the splendid bust of the Red Dean by Epstein. The Van Dyck is here, alongwith the Laura Knight hop pickers, many visitors; favourite The Little Girl at the Door, the portrait of Chaucer and the Canterbury Pilgrims, and quite a few others. And a small selection of ceramics is also on show.

Thomas Sidney Cooper display

Elsewhere in the Museum a storeroom has been opened up as a gallery for many of the Thomas Sidney Cooper paintings; and in the entrance hall as well as a number of pictures there is a showcase with one of the treasures of The Buffs Museum – the Albuhera centrepiece. The rest of that museum collection, which was the first to be removed from the Beaney, has gone to the National Army Museum which owns it and will be conserving a number of items which will return to be part of the new displays.

All other available space was pressed into use with pictures going up on spare walls, and with one of the education rooms converted into a gallery store with temporary racks installed to maximise the use of its space.

The largest pictures and furniture were moved by a removal company, but otherwise everything else was moved by the museum team led by the City Council’s Curator Ken Reedie. And nothing was damaged or lost in any of the process.

Planning for re-opening

Museum staff, now busy with the detailed work which continues on the project, will soon be detailing out the timings and sequencing of returning collections to the refurbished and extended Beaney for the Spring of 2012.

Partners

The Beaney development is a partnership project of Canterbury City Council which provides the museum and gallery services and owns the Beaney, and Kent County Council which is the library provider. Both councils are investing in the project which has received major grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the South East England Development Agency.