Museum Development and other News

Heritage Lottery Fund
Proposals to develop the Museum of East Anglian Life (MEAL) have taken a step closer to reality after the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) earmarked 1.771million to help transform the site. Museum Director, Tony Butler was overjoyed at the news and said. HLFs decision is fantastic, all the team have worked so hard over the last few years to develop plans to turn the museum into a major regional cultural attraction.

This will help us fulfil our ambitions. The development of the northern part of the site will enhance the experience for visitors, by creating a new entrance to the museum and restoring the Abbots Hall complex as its centrepiece.

Abbots Hall is a fine Queen Anne country house dating from the early 18th century. This landmark building will be restored, creating a series of new museum and exhibition spaces. The surrounding cottage buildings will be saved from ruin, and will be restored as examples of rural workers dwellings.

The cottage gardens will be recreated in tandem with the Abbots Hall walled garden to illustrate the difference between the needs of the rich and the poor. At the same time, the restoration of the walled garden will help develop the museum's social enterprise which provides training, skills development and work experience for socially excluded groups.

A major strength of the application was the museums commitment to help the people of Suffolk. Tony Butler explained. We deliberately positioned MEAL at the heart of community because a museum without people would be a very dull place indeed. We are a centre for volunteering; last year there were 42,000 volunteer hours museum worked at the museum  that's the equivalent of everyone in Stowmarket giving MEAL half a day of his or her time.

Over the last 18 months, working with consultants, the museum compiled a series of plans to make the museum more accessible and more engaging to our visitors and to ensure the long term sustainability of its historic buildings.

For details of these plans, please see below:

Do you have any questions about our development project? Download the FAQs here (PDF 61Kb).

Latest News

A New Exhibition – ‘Happy Days’

April 27th, 2010

What makes you happy? Is it playing on your Wii? Spending time with your family? Playing with your friends? Or even going to school? These are some of the questions that the Museum of East Anglian Life put to Class 3 at Lavenham Primary School. The museum then asked Class 3 to think about what may have made a Victorian child happy. The children researched Victorian life, handled Victorian toys from the museum collections and visited the museum to gather more information.

Read more about A New Exhibition – ‘Happy Days’

‘Food and Farming – An Urban Perspective’ Photographic Exhibition

March 25th, 2010

From March to April 2010 the Museum of East Anglian Life, Stowmarket is playing host to the ARC-Addington Fund photographic exhibition ‘Food and Farming An Urban Perspective’. The exhibition showcases a range of photographs taken in rural locations around Britain by Kevin Foord, a London based fashion photographer, and accompanied by captions from author, Richard Benson.

Read more about ‘Food and Farming – An Urban Perspective’ Photographic Exhibition

Museum wins £1.7M Lottery grant

September 22nd, 2008

Grant awarded  But... After a four year build up, and a huge amount of hard work our bid for development funds has been conditionally approved. We asked for £2.6m to develop Abbots Hall, the walled garden, the stables, Crowe Street cottages, and replace the conservatory. The HLF have granted us £1.771m on the condition that [...]

Read more about Museum wins £1.7M Lottery grant