Royal Marines Museum to move from Eastney to dockyard

TWO military museums in Portsmouth will come together after a £14m lottery grant.
The Royal Marines Museum housed at the Eastney barracksThe Royal Marines Museum housed at the Eastney barracks
The Royal Marines Museum housed at the Eastney barracks

The Royal Marines Museum, at the Esplanade, in Eastney, will relocate to a boathouse next to The National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

A new Centre for Discovery will also feature more than two million artefacts, currently housed elsewhere.

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Prof Dominic Tweddle, director general of NMRN, said it would ‘deepen and enrich’ the visitor experience.

He said collections currently ‘dispersed and at risk across the country” in 30 separate locations, many in storage, would go on show.

Sir Peter Luff, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said: ‘We loved the National Museum of the Royal Navy’s plans to tell the very human story of the Royal Navy.

‘The Centre for Discovery will provide a new, spacious venue to relate this narrative while the relocation of the Royal Marines Museum will give it a more prominent home and increased visitor numbers.

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‘Having already invested £55m in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, we are confident this latest award of National Lottery money will enable the dockyard to build on its reputation as one of the South East’s most popular heritage destinations.’

The Royal Marines Museum will move into the Grade II-listed Victorian Boathouse 6.

It is also receiving £2m from money raised from fines after the Libor banking scandal, with a further £2.5m coming from fundraising.

The new museum is due to open in 2019.