The Heritage Lottery Fund has granted almost a million pounds to the Melton Carnegie Museum which houses the UK’s only hunting museum.
The grant will enable the museum at Thorpe End, Melton Mowbray, to double in size, with additional permanent displays focusing on rural life, including hunting.
Leicestershire County Council announced last Thursday (April 10) that the award of £969,000 will enable extensions to the ground floor and first floor at the back of the museum. It is hoped to be completed by the end of 2009.
Michael Clayton, chairman of the Museum of Hunting trustees, said: “The hunting museum trustees are pledged to make a relatively small cash contribution to aid the latest successful bid, and we are asking people interested in the history of their sport to make contributions, however small.”
The grant is the third major award from the Lottery Fund to the museum.
The hunting museum’s management committee comprises Leicestershire hunting representatives, including Joss Hanbury and Rupert Inglesant, joint-masters of the Quorn and Belvoir hunts respectively.
This news story was first published in Horse & Hound (17 April, ’08)
