Funding boost for Berwick Barracks transformation project

The £69,500 Resilient Heritage grant represents an important next step in delivering a long-term project to transform Berwick Barracks, enabling English Heritage and its partners to better tell its dramatic and intriguing story as well as drawing visitors in to Berwick who will be able to enjoy all that the historic market town has to offer.

The funding will be used to explore ways of making the site, including the collections displayed there, more sustainable, generating income and running it more efficiently.

Berwick Barracks is English Heritage’s most northerly site and has long been regarded as a site with developmental potential.

This project, led by English Heritage, will work with a consortium of partners including Northumberland County Council, Museums Northumberland, The King’s Own Scottish Borderers Museum, The Maltings (Berwick) Trust and Berwick Archives and Museum Action Group. The National Lottery Heritage Fund grant will be supplemented by a further £40,000 from English Heritage and £4,500 from other partners.

Andrea Selley, Territory Director – North, at English Heritage said: “This grant recognises all the partners’ hard work and collaboration over a number of years which has now built a strong foundation for the next stage in Berwick’s development.

"Our project will bring together the key partners at Berwick Barracks to create a strong and compelling vision for the Barracks, to secure an exciting, dynamic, and above all, sustainable future for all of us.”

This project complements the recently successful Coastal Communities Fund bid from Berwick Coastal Community Team for the “Welcome Visitor” project. Welcome Visitor aims to establish the town as a key visitor destination for UK and overseas visitors, and will support wider regeneration ambitions through a package of measures including the development of a new Place Brand. The branding work will be led by well-known designer Wayne Hemingway of Hemingway Design.

Welcoming the announcement, Sir Philip Mawer, chairman of Berwick Museum and Archives Action Group said: “This award by the National Lottery Heritage Fund comes at a time of opportunity for Berwick.

"The award signals not only the continuing support of all the Partners involved in the project but English Heritage’s firm commitment to lead the long-term and exciting project to revive Berwick Barracks.

"The award is the next step towards delivering the sustainable, anchor tourist attraction on the Barracks site which Berwick and the people of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders so richly deserve.”