Oxford residents are being invited to adopt a piece of Oxford’s history to help fund the £2.8m redevelopment of the Museum of Oxford.
People will be able to adopt 60 objects from the Museum of Oxford’s collection, ranging from a Saxon arrowhead to a Morris Minor badge.
Adopters will get an adoption certificate, a digital image of the object, their name in the museum’s online gallery and an invite to the new museum’s opening in 2020.
You can adopt an object for yourself or as a gift, with adoptions starting at £25.
Objects available for adoption included:
- A bone ice skate from the Saxon period
- Lewis Carroll’spocket watch
- A pavement made of animal knuckle bones
- A 400-year-old tennis ball
- Rainsley model of a St Giles attraction
All money raised through the adopt an object scheme will go towards the development of the Museum of Oxford. If all 60 objects are adopted, it will raise £5,000.
Oxfordshire County Council’s Museum Service, which owns many of the objects, has kindly allowed them to be adopted.
The £2.8m project to transform the Museum of Oxford, called Oxford’s Hidden Histories, will tell the story of Oxford, its people and its communities. It has been dubbed the “people’s museum”.
The City Council hopes to raise £1.6m through a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and has set aside a further £315,000 for the project. It is hoped that the remaining funds will be raised through private donations.
The development trust, which will raise funds for the project, has been granted charity status by the Charities Commission. This allows the project to receive gift aid, and to apply to more trusts and foundations for funds.
The hope is to start building work in 2018 and open the new Museum of Oxford in 2020.
To find out more about the Museum of Oxford redevelopment project – please visit www.oxfordhiddenhistories.org
Click here for the link to the objects up for adoption