This award winning building houses the Museum's artefact collections and workshops.

The storage basement for the collections is sunk into an hillside giving huge volume with minimal landscape impact.  The top of the store forms a large deck covered with a lightweight roof structure called a gridshell to enclose the building conservation workshop and working space.  The gridshell is a lightweight structure made of oak laths and is insulated so that it can be used in comfort year-round.

The basement store is secure and environmentally controlled and houses the Museum's collections of tools and artefacts from rural life in the region numbering about ten thousand items. Agriculture, domestic life, trades and industries and transport are all represented, and there is a special emphasis on building construction and the building trade.

The east end of the basement, the Mitford Foulerton Studio is is devoted to research, documentation and conservation of the collections and is be used by the curator, research and conservation teams and students. 

Access to the stores is available on guided tours and by appointment with the curator.

The upper part of the building, the Jerwood Gridshell Space, provides a workshop where historic timber-framed buildings can be laid out for conservation and repair. The space is also used for the Museum's growing programme of training workshops, the conservation of large objects and is available to schools for educational use.  The upper part of the building also contains a small classroom.  For full details of the development of the Gridshell building visit the Museum Website

Teacher Led Visits

Repeating patterns, angles and curves are obvious in this innovative building, which offers endless opportunities for work on shape, measurement and numeracy.

Workshops Featuring this Building