Those blog readers who’ve been to Kew recently will have noticed we’ve carried out a few changes to our museum.
You may not know this, but The National Archives and its predecessor, the Public Record Office, have had some form of museum to display our fantastic collection since the early 1900s and it is a really great resource to have.
The face the old museum presented to those arriving at The National Archives
The museum was completely redesigned in 2008 and, while people really loved the content and displays, the space never really worked the way it was supposed to. So, after carrying out an internal review of the museum this year, we started a project to address the main issues identified: that the space was cold, dark, uninviting and often looked closed and there wasn’t any space or facilities for a large group, limiting our education department’s use of the space. All of these problems resulted in there being relatively little use of the museum, it was often empty and those who did pop in to take a look didn’t stay very long.