Date announced for reopening of 'showstopper' of a museum following £20million revamp

Hull Maritime Museum, inside the former Grade II* listed Dock Offices in Queen Victoria Square, has been closed since January 2020. Originally built in 1871, the striking Victorian building has been transformed. Major new displays, immersive galleries and internationally significant collections, will set out the city's maritime history that helped shape trade, migration, fishing and whaling across Britain and beyond. Hull and the Humber remain the UK’s busiest port complex.

A likely highlight for visitors will be the chance to ascend a spiral staircase into one of the building's three distinctive domes and get 360 degree views across the city and to the docks beyond. Gill Ogersby, the programme director for Hull Maritime, said: "The Maritime Museum is a real showstopper, it's an incredible mixture of stories, with traditional aspects that people would expect to see in a museum, layered with modern technology, which brings the collection alive in new and different ways. It's a real celebration of Hull and its people." People will find the entrance much brighter, following the opening up of an internal courtyard, and there's a whole new floor visitors can access for the first time.

"It's amazing how much the building was covered up," says Gill. "Very few people have been up to the second floor. It was office and storage space. (Looking out from the dome) the stone carvings on the building's roofline are really beautiful and you can get a bird's eye view of Queen's Gardens, City Hall, you can see the Marina, the Humber." The extra space means hundreds more objects are going on display, many of which have never been on show before. A dedicated scrimshaw gallery will show off off a collection of intricate folk art created by whalers from whale bone and teeth, believed to be the biggest outside the United States.

It includes a newly acquired rare scrimshaw tooth linked to Hull whaling ship Truelove, which made 72 Arctic voyages over more than a century and hand-painted whale earbones transformed into surreal human faces. Other highlights include the skeleton of a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, a species with fewer than 400 remaining worldwide and artefacts from Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition to Antarctica including crumpled leather footwear belonging to Hull fisherman John Vincent - one of the five men picked for a hazardous open boat journey to try and get help, after Endurance became trapped in ice in 1915 and sank 10 months later. Council leader Mike Ross said a visit to the museum would be an "unforgettable" experience, adding: "I am sure we will be welcoming visitors from far and wide to Hull to see its maritime treasures for decades to come.” The council spent £11.8m on the project with National Lottery Heritage Fund contributing £7.7m, and nearly £1m from private donations. Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: "It's incredibly exciting to see that Hull Maritime Museum will reopen this summer and is ready to welcome visitors from near and far to share and celebrate the city's rich and fascinating maritime heritage. Not only will visitors be captivated by the significant collections of the museum, comprising of around 1,300 artefacts, they will be able to take in the striking beauty of the Grade II* listed building and its stunning architecture, which has been preserved as part of the project."