Staff and volunteers at Ruddington’s historic Framework Knitters’ Museum say they’re “super happy” to have received new funding worth £62,925. The cash will be used for urgent structural, chimney, window and roofing repairs, as well as improving the heating and security at their Chapel Street tourist attraction.
The award is part of a £48m national package of additional government support for museums and libraries in the UK from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England.
The museum has already benefitted from extensive previous funding to help with its ambitious recent expansion project, enabling some impressive new visitor facilities which officially opened last November. This latest financial boost will help it to maintain the fabric of the buildings on its site and make further improvements.
“We applied last year for the funding and built the project with input from conservation officers, contractors, architects and quantity surveyors to work out the best solution to some of our maintenance issues” explains the museum’s manager and Curator Jim Grevatte. “The funding is going towards areas of the site that the ‘A Right Good Yarn’ project supported by NLHF and FCC could not support – namely repairs to the cottages and frameshops. It’s all the stuff that we can’t do ourselves i.e. stuff at height and requiring specialist skills. The roofs of both frameshops leak in heavy rain. We have managed this by putting tarpaulins over the knitting frames, but this funding will see a permanent solution.”
Jim says it will allow other improvements, too: “At the same time we are able to insulate both roof spaces and therefore reduce our heating bills and carbon footprint. Many of the windows that were replaced in the 1970s need repair and those that are behind the scenes are having secondary double glazing to reduce heat loss. We’ll also be opening up the old skylight to the back to back attic bedroom. While the scaffolding is up we’ll also be repointing the brickwork and chimneys to keep the weather out for another 50 years. Visitors will see some scaffolding up over the coming months but the museum will remain open as usual.”
The welcome extra funding comes just as the museum and Glassball Studio announce the commission of a new artwork by artist Marie Jones. Marie will be making a knitted banner – with a nod to Ruddington’s Friendly Societies banner processions of old – and wants the artwork to tell your story of Ruddington: ‘The Diamond Village’. So villagers are being asked to nominate our own ‘Ruddington Diamond, to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee, for inclusion on the banner which will be paraded through the village on 5th June 2022. These can be people living and working in our village today, or those from many moons ago, such as Ann Birkin, Francis Wheatley, James Peacock, Oliver Blood or Rueben & Nancy Grice.
You have until April 1st 2022 to nominate who you feel should be included in this banner artwork for consideration by Marie and local judges Sarah Julian of BBC Radio Nottingham and Graham Wright of RUDDINGTON.info.
Not only that, the judges also want you to suggest a Diamond Village ‘motto’ for the banner. What words would sum up how you feel about our Ruddington community, its diamonds / characters, or its ‘sense of place’ in history?
You can submit your nominations and mottos for judging >>HERE<< but you’ll need to be quick!
“I love the idea that the people of Ruddington come out on the day of the procession to demonstrate that they have had their socks blown off in support of its new Diamonds and their Queen” says Marie. She is asking for people to help knit various additional elements of the banner, as well as sock brooches to be worn on the day. Knitting patterns are available on the Diamond Village website >>HERE<< and also from the Framework Knitters’ Museum itself.
Marie will be working on the banner at the museum on Wednesday 6th April from 11 – 3pm so perhaps you can pop in then to see how you can get involved with the artwork and the procession?
