Park backing for museum expansion

A £2M expansion of a leading North Yorkshire museum to house one of the country's most important social history collections – and double the number of visitors – was given the go-ahead yesterday.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Feb 2010, 10:33 BST
Updated 12th Feb 2010, 10:34 BST

Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le-Hole, near Pickering, wants to expand its historic High Barn exhibition area into a two-storey learning centre, and build a new building opposite it.

Members of the North York Moors National Park authority voted unanimously to approve the scheme yesterday.

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As well as a library, the new quarter will house the 1m collection of 10,000 artefacts spanning three decades of social history, donated to the museum by brothers Edward and Richard Harrison, of Kirkbymoorside, in 2006.

Head of Planning Val Dilcock said: "Ryedale Folk Museum is one of the National Park's key visitor attractions which both bolsters the local economy and provides an insight into the ways buildings were laid out and lives lived in centuries past within the Park."

The 2m scheme involves both the extension of High Barn, a former double barn currently used for exhibitions of vintage vehicles on the museum site, and the building of a new two-storey centre.

Related topics:National ParkNorth YorkshirePickering