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Brighton Museum to shut for essential roof repairs
Work is part of a wider scheme to revamp the Grade II-listed building
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is to close for more than five weeks over the summer for essential roof repairs.
The venue, housed in a Grade II-listed building, will shut from 5 August until 12 September when contractors will start work on repairing the 220-year-old roof.
A 2019 structural survey found the building, one of the UK's first purpose-built museums, needs urgent repairs. The work will be funded by a £1,463,769 grant from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport via Arts Council England.
Brighton & Hove City Council, which owns the Royal Pavilion (also managed by Brighton & Hove Museums), has provided a £500,000 grant for the work.
Brighton & Hove Museums CEO Hedley Swain said: “The work on the roof is essential to protect visitors and staff, our collections and the building. It needs to be carried out at a time when the weather is expected to be dry, to reduce the risk of water damage while the work is being done. The summer months are the best time to conduct this work and will mean the closure time will be shorter.”
This building project is designed to enhance the care of the collections housed within the space as well as the visitor experience. The work will improve carbon performance and provide better access to the space for staff and contractors.
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Although the museum will closed completely on 5 August -2 September, the majority of Brighton Museum will remain open for most of the building project. Two galleries – the 20th Century Gallery and Mr Willett’s Popular Pottery Gallery – will be closed during the work, which is scheduled to finish in the summer next year.
Other galleries such as Fashion, World Art, Ancient Egyptian, Archaeology, Fine Art, Prints and Drawings and Queer the Pier will remain accessible as normal via the front entrance and side galleries.
Donald Insall Associates is the project’s architect.
Olivia Stitson, senior architect at Donald Insall Associates, said: “The 1960s roof lantern has reached the end of its service life, and its necessary replacement provides an important opportunity not only to improve safety, maintenance costs and carbon emissions, but make sure we’re passing this much-loved gallery to the next generation.
"The introduction of a thermally insulated solid lead roof will significantly improve the performance of this listed building whilst also providing an incredible opportunity to reinterpret the building’s original architectural qualities and recreate a sense of daylight from above.”