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Location: Basingstoke, Hampshire
Client: The Arts and Museums Service
Value: £ 800,000
Completed: May 2009
Specialist teams:HCC Property Services Historic Buildings and Interior Design GroupHCC Property Services Engineeering Services;Quantity Surveyor: Wheelers Quantity Surveyors;Structural Engineer: Upton McGougan;Timber Decay Consultant: Hutton and Rostron
The Willis Museum is in Basingstoke’s former Town Hall, an elegant Regency building dating from1832 which dominates the pedestrianised Market Square in the heart of the old town. It is a Grade II Listed Building and has been run by Hampshire County Council as a local museum since 1986. It contains the ‘Story of Basingstoke’ exhibition as well as hosting touring exhibitions, community shows, school visits and local history resources. With funding from Hampshire County Council, The Wolfson Foundation, The Linbury Trust and other sources, the brief was to create an enlarged gallery for temporary exhibitions which would conform to national environmental and security standards while revealing the hidden historic interiors of the building. The work to achieve this involved peeling away layers of inflexible display cases and false ceilings, upgrading electrical services and the restoration of original internal features including plaster ceilings and cast iron columns. High quality glazed lobby screens and secondary glazing was fitted to the opened up ground floor space to create a modern flexible gallery space. A salvaged marble fireplace contemporary with the building is the centrepiece of the recreation of ‘The Mayor’s Parlour’ serving as the museum shop and café. The former first floor archaeology room was converted into a multi-purpose gallery for community use and space for new visitor and staff toilets has been found. At the same time as this internal transformation was going on, the building was completely re-roofed with natural slate and lead to match the original.
Key Benefits
• The Willis Museum can now provide gallery space designed to MLA environmental and security standards for touring exhibitions from national institutions
• Local artists can now be exhibited simultaneously with the main exhibitions
• Vital repairs have been done to preserve this historic building into the future
• The original ground floor layout of the former Town Hall can now be more easily understood
• The new café and shop area offer a popular meeting place for local people
The Willis Museum
Contact: Giles Pritchard | 01962 847801 | [email protected] | www.hants.gov.uk/propertyservices
Property Services
The ‘Basingstoke: A Place to be Proud of’ 2009 Arts and Culture Award
The transformation of The Willis
Museum is overwhelming … it has
been done with quality in mind.
Councillor George Hood
We thought it was brilliant and
interesting, this is our first visit to the
museum and we will come again.
Visitor Comment
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The Willis Museum
