Rotunda Museum Totally Explained

Everything about The Rotunda Museum totally explained

The Rotunda Museum is one of the oldest purpose-built museums still in use in the United Kingdom.

Founding

The Rotunda Museum, described as the finest surviving purpose-built museum of its age in the country, was built in 1829 to a design suggested by William Smith, 'Father of English Geology'. Smith's pioneering work established that geological strata could be identified and correlated using the fossils they contain. Smith came to Scarborough after his release from debtors' prison. The dramatic Jurassic coastline of Yorkshire offered him an area of geological richness.
Sir John Johnstone became Smith’s patron and employed him as his Land Steward at Hackness. It was Johnstone, who was President of the Scarborough Philosophical Society which raised the money to build the Rotunda and consulted Smith as to the Museum’s design. Still in his twenties, Sir John was an intellectual leader in Scarborough in the 1820s and a staunch supporter of Smith and his ideas. He donated the Hackness stone of which the Rotunda Museum is built. Smith had seen a rotunda in London and instructed the architect, Richard Sharp of York, to follow that design. The Rotunda Museum was built to Smith’s design suggestion and the original display of fossils illustrated his ideas. The fossils and rocks were arranged in the order in which they occurred, with the youngest in the cases at the top and the oldest at the bottom. The order around the walls reflected the order of rocks on the Yorkshire coast. A section of the rocks on the coast was drawn around the inside of the dome of the building by Smiths nephew, another geologist, John Phillips.The two wings were added to the building in 1860. The collection was catalogued and conserved in preparation for redisplay in the refurbished Rotunda Museum. The more spectacular specimens have been chosen from the collection to go on temporary display in Wood End Museum and on the Dinosaur Coast website. These give a taste of the quality and range of the fossils and minerals that, due to limited exhibition space, are often in storage. The Yorkshire Dinosaur Coast stretches from Redcar in the north to Flamborough in the south.

Refurbishment

Scarborough Borough Council applied for just under £2 million in order to fund its plans to return the institution to its original role as a geological showcase. Plans to restore and refurbish Scarborough’s Grade II* listed Rotunda Museum were Supported by a £1.8 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Supported by English Heritage, the project was designed to make the museum a gateway to the area’s dinosaur coast and included creating a new entrance and installing a lift to improve disabled access. It was also intended to act as a tribute to the Rotunda's designer, William Smith.
   Initially, the HLF gave the council a Stage One pass, earmarking £1.8 million for the project and awarding it a £120,000 development grant. William Anelay Limited was contracted to carry out some essential external stonemasonry repairs and to cover the existing dome roof with a new lead covering. The contract included the demolition of some internal walls and the building of an extension to the front of the property. This provided a new entrance area, offices and toilet facilities and allows access from the path to the building at basement level. The existing spiral staircase was removed and a new one installed allowing for a lift shaft in the centre. The museum was closed during the restoration and refurbishment period and was initially expected to re-open in autumn 2007.
   Architect: Buttress Fuller Alsop Williams
   Structural Engineer: Alan Wood and Partners
   Quantity Surveyor: Appleyard and Trew LLP
   A set of unique glass display cabinets have been put back in the museum after undergoing restoration. The cabinets date back to 1830 and were designed to showcase the work of Smith. They were removed from the upper gallery and have now been cleaned, restored and repaired where necessary. A team of specialists based near Knaresborough carried out the work. The cabinets will be used to display items such as a model of George Cayley's original flying machine and an early steam car model by Sir Edward Harland. Lower tiers will house artifacts such as fossils, rock samples and minerals. Shell is currently the biggest corporate donor and is the title sponsor of the Shell Geology Now! gallery. This area of the museum looks at current geological and environmental research "bringing it to life for visitors to this unique museum". It reopened on Friday May 9 2008 following a two-year refurbishment costing £4.6 million. The museum was renamed The Rotunda – The William Smith Museum of Geology.

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