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Michael Palin officially opens Pitt Rivers Museum's new extension

14 November 2007 

The new £8 million extension of Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum is to be officially opened on 22 November by Michael Palin and the Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood. On the same occasion, the Museum will also formally announce Phase II of its development plan, supported by a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.


When both are complete, the two phases will have transformed the Museum’s capacity to serve all its visitors, whether from the local community, tourists, scholars from home and abroad, or members of indigenous communities who come to see the cultural heritage for which the Museum cares.


The new extension provides major new research, teaching, and public facilities, as well as enabling the Museum’s staff to work on site alongside the collections. It includes a new conservation laboratory, library, and purpose-designed collections management facilities for visiting researchers. It also features an exhibition gallery along with a lecture theatre and seminar room, which will be available for wider public use when not required for university teaching.

The Museum can now develop programmes which combine different levels of learning on one site, expanding its schools and community work, and drawing public and University interests more closely together. The Museum holds around half a million objects of which some 80,000 are on display at any one time, and attracts nearly 200,000 visitors per year.Michael Palin, a Patron to the Museum’s Friends, said: ‘I have always loved the Pitt Rivers’ wonderful eclectic displays. In an over-regimented world, they engage and stimulate the curious, and encourage a genuine spirit of discovery. The Museum’s new extension will now provide the public facilities and the teaching and research spaces equal to the importance of the collections.’


The official opening is to be followed by a public Celebration Weekend with family activities on Saturday 24 November and talks and tours on Sunday 25 November.


Phase II of the Museum’s development is being made possible thanks to a £1 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
Announcing HLF's latest grant for the Pitt Rivers Museum, Sheena Vick, HLF South East Manager, commented: ‘The award will enable this much loved museum to welcome visitors in a new way, with a transformed entrance area and education spaces.  Works will restore the original view that visitors would have seen when they entered the Museum from the Museum of Natural History, reinstating the identity of this remarkable attraction and providing improved access and education opportunities.’


The new project will improve the Museum’s public entrance and restore the original vista of its galleries, including the spectacular Totem Pole. The 1960s exhibition gallery at the entrance will be dismantled and the original display cases will be returned to the front of the Museum. The space created by the removal of these cases from the first floor will be used as an education area for schools and family activities.


The new entrance will also improve facilities for visitors by providing an information point, new staircase, and platform lift for wheelchair and pushchair access. The installation of an environmental control system will help preserve the Museum’s collections.
The Museum needs to raise substantial partnership funding to match the HLF award. The Museum’s Director, Michael O’Hanlon, said: ‘We are absolutely delighted with the award from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Thanks to the generosity of DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund and others, we have also made an excellent start on raising the necessary partnership funding.’


The Museum is now looking to its many supporters to help raise the further sum necessary to complete these much needed improvements which will help open up and protect the collections for future generations.


For more information please contact the Press Office on (01865) 280530 or at press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk


Notes to Editors

*The Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, is an international centre for Anthropology and World Archaeology. It was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave his personal collection of 20,000 items to the university on the condition that a museum was built to house the material. The majority of objects are displayed typologically, that is grouped by form or purpose, rather than by geographic or cultural origin. This unusual layout was developed by General Pitt Rivers himself.

*In 2005, the Museum won the Guardian newspaper’s award for the most family-friendly museum in the country, along with its sister the Museum of Natural History.

*The new extension to the Museum’s galleries has been jointly funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and by the University.

*Celebration weekend activities will be held from 1 to 4pm. ‘Wannabe Warriors’ on Saturday 24 November includes family activities for ages 5 and over, and ‘Contemporary Curiosity’ on Sunday 25 November includes a variety of talks and behind the scenes tours. 

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