The Charles Dickens Museum has secured funding of £2m from the Heritage Lottery Fund for Great Expectations, a major redevelopment project to radically change and increase display areas and improve the overall visitor experience at the Museum in Doughty Street, London, for the bicentenary of Dickens’s birth in 2012.
Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said: “This museum is a real ‘gem’ in the heart of London; a small place that packs a big punch. The £2m investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund will help radically transform not just the building itself but the way people experience and learn about this internationally-revered literary master.”
Actor Simon Callow commented on the award: “I am delighted at the splendid grant the HLF have awarded the Dickens Museum, making it possible to restore No 48 Doughty Street fully to the way it was in Dickens’s own time there.”
Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, welcomed the grant: “Everyone who visits will benefit from a closer acquaintance with this most English, but most universal, of authors. It deserves the support of the nation.”
Charles Dickens Museum, 48 Doughty Street, London, WC1N 2LX
TEL: 0207-405-2127 [email protected]
www.dickensmuseum.com