During autumn of 2022, Modece was awarded the bid to help the Food Museum in Stowmarket (formerly known as the Museum of East Anglian Life) apply for over £1,000,000 from the MEND programme, to develop, extend and refurbish some of the iconic buildings around the museum’s site.
The grant is awarded ‘by the Department for Culture, Media and Support and Arts Council England. The MEND fund helps museums to undertake vital infrastructure and urgent maintenance backlogs which are beyond the scope of day-to-day maintenance budgets.’ The Food Museum is one of over 70 recipients of the funding.
Modece produced Stages 0-3 for refurbishments to the Collection’s Store, Home Close area, the Bone Building, Grade II* Abbot’s Hall and Grade II Victorian Abbot’s Hall Stables and will now develop the rest of the stages to take to planning and through construction.
The Grant will allow to reroof, reclad and extend the museum’s Collections Store, which is the main space for the storage, conservation and maintenance of the museum’s vast collection. It will also allow to repair the woodwork and roofing on listed buildings including the stunning Grade II* Abbot’s Hall and Grade II Victorian Stables and improve toilet facilities across the site. The beautiful original timber frame structure of the 14th Century Edgar’s Farmhouse will also be taken down and relocated to a more appropriate location. Director of the Food Museum, Jenny Cousins said: ‘We’re overjoyed to have this opportunity to solve some of our long-term issues and substantially improve collections care and the visitor experience. The reality for a lot of museums that care for historic buildings is that we have inherited a large backlog of work and our resources for day-to-day maintenance are very small. The MEND fund is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix some long-standing problems and give a huge boost to the visitor experience.’
Alongside the works under MEND, the Museum will be building a new bridge to the Grade II Fishing Lodge with funding from the DCMS/Wolfson Museums & Galleries Improvement Fund and installing an accessible Changing Places toilet which will be open to the wider community during the day, with support from Mid Suffolk District Council. The project is also supported by Suffolk Public Sector Leaders and New Anglia LEP’s Suffolk Inclusive Growth Investment Fund.’
