We are a small, independent charity museum in the Lake District that in normal years generates most of our core income through ticket sales.
This has not been a normal year.
Before the second English lockdown we were only welcoming 30% of our usual visitor numbers, significantly reducing our income for this year and making it a struggle for us to continue to provide our award-winning service. This new November lockdown will make things even harder.
We are a vibrant organisation that puts our local community at the heart of what we do. We run education and outreach programmes for learners of all ages and abilities; we work with local schools and community groups to tackle health and social inequalities; we create 10 new exhibitions a year on everything from Herdwick shepherds to Lake District poets. Oh, and with our wonderful volunteer team's help, our galleries are open to visitors 7 days a week.
Call for Action:
In order to continue with all of this work, and the many other exciting things we have planned, we need help funding our core costs. These are the un-exciting things like keeping the building properly heated in order to best preserve our wonderful collection and the keep lights on. Except it is quite exciting when those lights are beautiful as ours!
Each of the six electroliers were designed specifically for our galleries and used the most modern lighting technology available at the time - the electrical chandelier. They were made by the Keswick School of Industrial Art around 1900 and are each inscribed with the name of the donor. Keswick Museum still inhabits the beautiful Arts & Crafts building, which is Cumbria's earliest purpose-built museum, and the original electroliers continue light the galleries for our visitors every day allowing them to see and enjoy our collections.
So please help us keep the electroliers on for another 120 years!