Heritage Fund announces £30m anniversary funding

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has announced £30m of funding for 15 projects to mark its 30th anniversary.

The grants include £4.5m for Tilbury Riverside Station in Essex, which forms part of the port where 800 of the Windrush generation arrived in Britain. The now-closed rail station sits within the internationally significant London Cruise Terminal, where the HMT Empire Windrush ship arrived in 1948.

The funding will support a regeneration of the station building, opening the main ticket hall for community events and creating eight studios for local artists, as well as a café. The Heritage Fund said the initiative will boost the local economy and re-establish Tilbury as a cultural destination.

Scott Sullivan, co-founder of Tilbury on the Thames Trust, said the project will safeguard the building for the nation while “celebrating the personal stories and connections local people have”.

A £4.5m sum was also awarded to the Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle, for a project intended to transform it over the next 10 to 15 years into an “innovative, welcoming, and sustainable cultural hub”.

And London’s 170-year-old Crystal Palace Park has received £4.7m to help reverse deterioration that has seen it placed on the Heritage at Risk Register since 2009.

The scheme will create a new information centre and playground, as well as restoring the Geological Court, home to a set of famous dinosaur sculptures.

Other funding recipients include Ripon Museums (£2.6m) and Watford Museum (£2.5m).

Heritage Fund chief executive Eilish McGuinness said: “These wonderful projects demonstrate the astonishing breadth of heritage that people value and want to pass onto future generations”.