From left to right – Lee Bellingham (Museum Manager), Councillor Preece (Parks, Culture, and Heritage Portfolio Leader for Cannock Chase District Council), Chris Derbyshire (Managing Director of IHL).

Cannock’s rich history will soon be just a click away thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Staff at the Museum of Cannock Chase are celebrating following an award of £87,120 which will see Cannock Chase’s history available as a digital online catalogue.

The successful Connecting Collections bid will ensure access to the museum’s collections and increase opportunities to engage with them, as well as improve management of the collections through digitisation, creating an online catalogue that can be utilised as the basis for new displays, engagement activities and research.

The Museum of Cannock Chase is managed by the charity Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles (IHL) on behalf of Cannock Chase District Council.

Lee Bellingham, IHL’s Service Manager at the Museum of Cannock Chase, said:

The museum is absolutely delighted to receive this grant which will make a huge difference to how we engage with our visitors.

This funding, made possible by National Lottery players, will enable us to tell better, more relevant, timely and responsive stories involving a wider range of people.

We are looking forward to starting work and would urge any members of the community who would like to be a part of this amazing project to come along to our History Hunters sessions which take place at the museum every fortnight on a Thursday morning.

Members of the public will be able to access the new database via the museum website and an on-site kiosk.

It will also see the creation of an online curated search of the collections so that people can find out more about the historical treats in the museum.

New travelling displays for other venues in the community will also be introduced, reaching new audiences in Cannock, Hednesford and Rugeley.

Welcoming news of the funding, Cannock Chase Council’s Parks, Culture and Heritage Portfolio Leader, Councillor John Preece, said:

Digitising the collection will allow more of the museum’s collection to be accessed by residents, which is something I know our leisure partners IHL have wanted to do for a while. Not only will it help enrich the museum’s extensive collection by telling the stories of their importance in new and imaginative ways, but it will also make the many artefacts accessible to people not able to get to the museum in person who will be able to appreciate them remotely via a computer.

Chris Derbyshire, Managing Director for IHL, added:

We’re extremely grateful for this funding, this support will make our museum collection much more accessible, enabling people to learn, share and celebrate Cannock’s rich history.

Interest in joining in? History Hunters are the museum volunteer research group, which aims to provide a welcoming space for people in the local community with shared interests to gather regularly to explore, research and interpret the museum collections. If you’d like to be part of this project, please get in touch via the website or message us on Facebook.