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Museums, libraries and archives

Museums, libraries and archives

A person handles large parchment documents in an archive room, with shelves of archive boxes in the background
Black Cultural Archives. Credit: Kois Miah
Museums, libraries and archives tell the stories of our cultural heritage.

Through objects, collections, film, documents and oral histories they help to give us a sense of place and identity.

Thanks to National Lottery players, since 1994 we have awarded £2.4billion to 5,900 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK. See stories from projects we've funded below.

We provide grants for heritage projects from £10,000–£10million to ensure that heritage is valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future.

What do we support?

Our funding supports institutions large and small, including:

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

Project ideas

Our funding could help people:

  • create exciting new exhibition and learning spaces
  • attract more diverse audiences
  • interpret and open up acquisitions
  • develop collections

For more inspiration, see the stories below or browse projects we've funded.

How to get funding

Our National Lottery Heritage Grants programme is open for applications.

Find out more and apply
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.
Hands on embroidery

Projects

Touching stitches: embroidery access for the blind

This innovative project explored ways to enable blind and partially sighted people to access the Edinburgh College of Art’s historic textile collection, which spans over three centuries.

A group of people outside a heritage building featuring a clock tower at Hopetown Darlington.
Staff from Darlington Borough Council and Hopetown.Darlington at the new visitor attraction.

Projects

Hopetown: celebrating the North East’s railway heritage

A state-of-the-art visitor attraction and community engagement scheme celebrates the historic Stockton and Darlington railway line.

People looking at display cases in a mezzanine gallery.
Manchester Museum’s experimental Top Floor supports collective action in response to the climate and ecological crises.

News

Enter the Sustainable Project of the Year award 2025

We’re proud to sponsor the sustainability prize at the Museums + Heritage awards, celebrating outstanding projects and exhibitions that are addressing the climate crisis.
An artist's impression of a building with glass walls and a low wooden roof, with the words 'staffordshire history centre' on the side of the building
The extension will provide space for exhibitions and activities with storage space for 55 years of future collections. Image: Staffordshire County Council.

Projects

A new hub for sharing Staffordshire’s history

Thanks to £4.8million in National Lottery funding, Staffordshire History Centre will provide state of the art archive facilities for communities.

Three black people take part in a workshop on black history. All three people have dark skin of various shades, the focus of the image is a woman holding a magazine with black people on the cover
A Rebel Curators workshop at M Shed in October 2024. Andreann Asibey (left), Jazz Thompson (middle) and Bandele Iyapo (right). Photo: Julz Davis.

Blogs

Rebel Curators: reclaiming narratives of slavery at Bristol’s M-Shed

Co-creation with the African-Caribbean community, made possible with £70,000 in National Lottery funding, is another step towards including their perspectives in telling Bristol’s history.
A large pile of silver coins on a black background
The Chew Valley Hoard. Credit: © British Museum.

News

Major Norman Conquest coin hoard secured for the UK

The Chew Valley Hoard, which at £4.3million is the highest valued treasure find on record, has been acquired by the South West Heritage Trust thanks to National Lottery funding.
Banners and historic photographs inside the Shipbuilders Gallery.
Inside the new shipbuilding gallery which is showcasing the area's rich heritage.

Projects

Sharing Barrow's past, present and future

The Dock Museum in Barrow-in-Furness has undergone a major refurbishment to celebrate the area’s rich shipbuilding and engineering heritage.

Two people of Chinese heritage play a drum in a procession, while people in the background hold placards with photos of Chinese relatives
Ancestral Futures by Eelyn Lee and collaborators, commissioned by Dig Where You Stand. Photo: Anh Do.

Stories

How artists can uncover hidden histories and fill gaps in the archives

South Yorkshire project Dig Where You Stand invited creatives to explore the often overlooked and poorly documented evidence of people from diverse ethnic communities across the area's history.

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