Heritage & Culture

Peterborough Museum and Gallery reopened!

City Culture Peterborough is delighted to announce the reopening of Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery.

The Museum was re-opened today (4 December) and will be open to the public from Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm, and Sunday 12pm-4pm.

Peterborough Museum is one of the city’s most historic buildings. The museum was previously a private house and then became Peterborough’s first hospital. There are both a wealth of stories to fascinate and enthral the whole family and amazing objects to discover, from prehistoric fossils to Roman artefacts, Victorian surgical equipment and incredible crafts made by prisoners of war.

Previously under the management of Vivacity, the museum has transferred to City Culture Peterborough, part of The City College Peterborough Foundation.

Pat Carrington MBE CEO of City Culture Peterborough, said: “I am delighted and thrilled that we are now able to reopen the Peterborough Museum and to be inviting visitors back for the first time since March. The team at City Culture Peterborough have been preparing for this day and have some great new things for you to see and experience.”

All the Museum galleries will be open, including a new exhibition to celebrate the reopening, ‘Restart Peterborough’, which features art from local artists.

To ensure the safety of visitors, staff and volunteers during their time at the museum, measures have been put in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in line with Tier 2 High Alert Covid-19 guidance. Face coverings will be required when in the building, there is a one-way system in place to help ensure social distancing, sanitising facilities are available throughout and an increased cleaning regime of the museum and facilities will be in place. Perspex screens have been put up around all tills and contactless sales are available.

These measures do mean that there is a reduced capacity for visitors to the museum, including limits on the numbers in each gallery. You may be asked to queue both before entering and while in the building, so that appropriate social distancing can be followed. Unfortunately, Covid-19 restrictions mean that many of the interactive activities have been removed, to reduce touchpoints within the building.

Visitors will be asked to give their details on arrival for test and trace purposes. If you are showing any symptoms of Covid-19, please do not visit the museum.

Squires Coffee House will also be reopening with reduced capacity and new social distancing measures in place.

Councillor Steve Allen, cabinet member at Peterborough City Council, said: “We are delighted that the museum is opening once again following Covid-19 and there are exciting plans for its future – including an application for funding to build an extension to the museum which will allow it to house the historic Must Farm boats from Flag Fen. This would allow the city to exhibit them properly, to create an international attraction to boost tourism in the coming years.”

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