Museums, libraries and archives

Our funding is helping to transform museums, galleries, libraries and archives, and the collections they hold.

From Belfast to Norwich and Swansea to Shetland, towns and cities across the UK have museums and archives they can be proud of. Some of these have contemporary new homes, while others have been redeveloped in historic buildings, with excellent public facilities.

We assist museums, galleries and libraries in acquiring new objects and materials, and keeping their collections relevant to visitors. For example, the portrait of nurse Mary Seacole purchased by the National Portrait Gallery is now used in education programmes about significant black Britons.

We also help to make archives’ collections more accessible through cataloguing, digitisation and outreach programmes.

Featured projects

Facts and figures

£1.42billion has been allocated to over 2,500 projects benefiting over 900 museums and galleries in the UK.
£276.7m has been awarded to exhibitions, interpretation, collections management, learning and outreach programmes.
114 projects focusing on Designated collections in England and 20 projects in Significant collections in Scotland have received £126.9million.
We have given almost £148m to 493 projects for the acquisition of portable heritage by museums and galleries.
HLF has awarded over £281m to more than 1,000 archive and library projects.

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