Staff at the New Forest Heritage Centre in Lyndhurst have been thrilled by the response to its reopening last month, with visitor numbers and retail performance stronger than anticipated. The Christopher Tower Reference Library has remained closed as the collections storage systems are modernised and upgraded. A new rack shelving system has increased the amount of storage space for the collections fourfold. This part of the Re-Store project is now almost complete, with staff and volunteers working hard to finish the cataloguing and labelling. The library will reopen in the next few weeks.
Giles Gould, Centre Manager says “We are very excited to show off the results of this project, and looking forward to visitors being able to access our resources for their research once more. We’ve been lucky to attract some significant local support for this project, which has helped us solve a problem which grew out of us simply being too successful! We’ve created a significant archive for the New Forest which speaks with a voice of authority, but we essentially needed space to grow again and ensure our artefacts are stored in an appropriate manner”
Chair of Trustees Mary Montagu-Scott said “We are delighted to see the new shelving in place, and very grateful to have received the funding to enable the project to happen. Visitors will soon be able once again to use the extensive resources that we are honoured to hold, to understand the history and qualities of the amazing New Forest”.