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Museums, libraries and archives

Museums, libraries and archives

Museums, libraries and archives
Museums, libraries and archives tell the stories of our cultural heritage.

Through preservation, exhibition and community engagement, they can bring collections, places and ideas to life. They help us to understand culture, science and history, and give us a sense of place, identity and community.

Thanks to National Lottery players, since 1994 we have awarded £2.5billion to 6,000 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK. See stories from projects we've funded below.

What do we support?

We provide grants for heritage projects from £10,000–£10million for projects led by or featuring museums, libraries and archives.

Our funding supports institutions large and small, including:

  • national, local authority and independent museums, libraries and archives
  • historic libraries
  • community archives and oral history collections
  • institutions with heritage collections

Project ideas

Our funding could help people:

  • create exciting new exhibition and learning spaces
  • attract new and more diverse audiences
  • acquire new items and develop collections
  • improve organisational resilience

For more inspiration, see the stories below, browse projects we've funded, or explore our recent Dynamic Collections campaign.

How to get funding

Our National Lottery Heritage Grants programme is open for applications.

Find out more and apply
A person stands in front of a thatched building showing a butterfly in resin to a group of school children
Ulster Folk Museum is creating new facilities and ways for people to get involved. Credit: Johnny Frazer.

Stories

New investment is reawakening Ulster Folk Museum

The transformative £50million redevelopment project will help bring people closer to their shared heritage.
Children in a museum
Children enjoying an exhibition at Seven Stories, Newcastle upon Tyne

Hub

Dynamic Collections

Our campaign supported collecting organisations across the UK to become more inclusive and resilient with a focus on engagement, re-interpretation and collections management.
Shelves full of pamphlets and bookmarks highlighting significant LGBTQ+ writers
Lavender Menace in Edinburgh. Credit: Andrew Thompson.

Stories

Five community spaces that made LGBTQ+ history

Lavender Menace, Edinburgh Founded in 1982, Lavender Menace was the first LGBTQ+ bookshop in Scotland. The shop, and its successor Wilde & West, soon became a hub where people could meet, share experiences and discover LGBTQ+ literature that was hard to find elsewhere. Today it’s been reimagined as
A person using drawing on paper with cut out images of a historical person.
Participants use historical archives to research and develop creative responses to the lives of patients from former psychiatric hospitals.

Stories

New online hub helping partnerships promote wellbeing through archive exploration

Heritage can make a significant, positive contribution to how we feel about our lives. One of our funded projects is sharing a decade of its learnings with organisations across the UK.
Four people smile and take a selfie.
The project will open up iniva's archive to the public. Credit: Francis Augusto / iniva.

Projects

Living Legacies: collaboration, community and radicality

Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva) is running a four-year project to transform public access to its renowned archive sharing the heritage of ethnically diverse communities.

A group of people holding Roman artefacts stand in front of a mosaic wall in the Calleva Gallery
The renamed Calleva Gallery at Reading Museum. Credit: Reading Museum.

Projects

Sharing the stories of Reading’s Roman past

Reading Museum will relaunch their Silchester Gallery as a more accessible space that showcases Roman life and engages new visitors.

Two Egyptian cartonnage figures on a table
Egyptian cartonnage figures, part of the collection at The Egypt Exploration Society. Credit: The Egypt Exploration Society.

Projects

Building the future of The Egypt Exploration Society

Our support is helping to transform the home of Egyptology in the UK into an accessible, innovative and sustainable heritage centre.

A close up of Cromwell's Watch, shown in a silver case.
It is one of only two watches thought to have belonged to Cromwell, the other being in the British Museum. Credit: Simon Hill, The Cromwell Museum.

Projects

Bringing Oliver Cromwell’s watch home to Huntingdon

The Cromwell Museum secured the small pocket watch for its permanent collection following a public appeal and is now sharing its story with new audiences.

Digitising tape reel recordings on a machine
A digitising machine transfers old recordings to a digital archive. Credit: Sounds of the South West.

Projects

Saving the sounds of the South West

A three-year project by Bristol Archives is protecting more than 8,000 rare and at-risk audio recordings.

An elevated view across the busy market stalls of Alnwick towards Northumberland Hall, which runs along the far side of the market square.
Northumberland Hall, in the heart of Alnwick, on market day. Photo: Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery.

Projects

Reimagining Alnwick's Northumberland Hall as a community museum

The Heritage, Creativity and Community project will restore a historic Georgian building and create a new home for the town's award-winning Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery.

If you query is regarding our application portal, please contact our support team.