Holburne Museum offer free entry for all

23rd July 2009

Two years before it re-opens following a £10.8m capital development project, the Holburne Museum in Bath has made the bold move of scrapping admission charges for the first time in its long history.

As the Museum of the University of Bath, the Holburne will be joining the ranks of other free-to-enter university museums including the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. Experience has shown that free entry dramatically increases visitor numbers.

Free entry to national and university museums was introduced from 2001 and has been an outstanding success. For national museums visitor figures overall have increased by 87% since free admission was introduced with many museums seeing increases of over 100% . During Bath's Heritage Open Week, when the Holburne does not charge admission, the Museum tends to see a three-fold increase in its own visitor numbers .

The restoration of its eighteenth-century home and the building of a spectacular modern extension promises to place the Holburne alongside some of Europe's most wonderful regional museums. But taking this decision at such an early stage in its redevelopment, signals its confidence in its own future.

When it re-opens the Holburne will house a collection of fine and decorative arts, built around the exquisite art collection of Sir William Holburne - assembled in nineteenth-century Bath. We hold a nationally significant collection of paintings, Renaissance bronzes and maiolica, silver, sculpture, furniture and porcelain, including important and popular works by Brueghel, Gainsborough, Stubbs and Turner. In recent years we have also established a national reputation for imaginative, scholarly and popular exhibitions.

In common with many museums with free admission, the Holburne will continue to charge for temporary exhibitions. This, along with a garden café and shop, as well as venue hire, will help finance this historic move.