The Royal Armouries in Leeds has secured £250k in funding awards towards the installation of a new Special Exhibitions Gallery.
The Gallery is part of the wider Armouries 700 plan, a programme of redevelopment and renewal celebrating 700 years since the founding of the Armouries collection. The Garfield Weston will provide £150k while the Wolfson Foundation will offer a further £100k.
The Special Exhibitions Gallery will allow an additional 100,000 visitors per year to experience historical stories brought to life by curatorial teams from across the world working in partnership with the Royal Armouries’ own curators.
Nat Edwards, director general and master of the Royal Armouries said: “The Gallery will allow us to stage large-scale exhibitions which bring to life the human stories behind the arms, armour and conflict of the past and help us consider what this means for us now.”
The gallery represents a central plank in the Royal Armouries strategy to widen access to its collection and diversify audiences, with a focus on exhibitions with popular themes which can engage a wide range of people.
The first exhibition in the new Gallery, Gladiators- Heroes of the Colosseum, will open to the public in June 2025.
