Creswell Crags Museum and Archaeology Park

The project to build a new Museum and Education Centre at Creswell Crags has begun. Following the news in March 2007 that Creswell Crags had confirmation of the funding which will support the development of a new Ice Age centre, contracts with the developer Tomlinson are now in place and work has started on site. The architects for the new building are OMI Architects of Manchester; the museum exhibition designers are the Continuum group of York and the museum consultant is Hilary McGowan.
The development will safeguard the future of Creswell Crags by creating the facilities within the building to give visitors a much clearer understanding about this nationally important Ice Age archaeological site. The funding for the scheme is being provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund, who are providing the lion's share of the capital costs, with further funding support by the East Midlands Development Agency and the European Union as part of the European Regional Development Fund.

The lack of investment and modernisation of the original visitor centre at Creswell Crags, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and a part of a Grade II listed park associated with Welbeck Abbey, has severely limited its ability the live up to its reputation as one of Britain's top heritage sites. Creswell Crags hit the headlines in April 2003 with the discovery of the Ice Age Cave Art, billed as one of the most important prehistoric finds in the last decade, Britain's earliest cave art 13,000 years old including figures of birds, deer, bison and horse. Archaeological finds dating back between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago have also been discovered, including flint and bone tools and carvings, proving that Ice Age hunters visited the site to hunt reindeer and horse.

The funding will be used to create a centre of excellence for telling the Ice Age story of the Crags to school children, local communities and tourists and will underpin the site's national and international prominence as well as assisting with the wider regeneration of North East Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire. Britain seriously lacks a national focus where people in this country as well as an international audience are able to learn about the Ice Age. With this proposed development Creswell Crags now has the potential to be that centre and inspire visitors about the lifestyles of our early ancestors at a place we know they were living.

The new building will incorporate state of the art displays, a research and library room, collection storage facilities as well as a suite of rooms for education groups, talks and conferences. The British Museum, a major partner with Creswell Crags, is one of several museums who have already agreed to loan artefacts for display and as part of a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions.

Background Information

Creswell Heritage Trust is a small independent charitable Trust supported by Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire County Councils, Bolsover District Council, Lafarge Aggregates, Severn Trent Water, English Heritage and Natural England. The Trust's patrons are Professor David Bellamy and Sir Martin Doughty. The Trust works closely with a number of professional and scientific bodies including Sheffield University and the British Museum.

Creswell Crags forms part of one of Europe's most important archaeological landscapes preserving the most significant cluster of cave sites inhabited during the last Ice Age in Britain. The caves provided shelter for Neanderthal and anatomically modern people through a crucial period of human evolution between 130,000 and 10,000 years ago. Since the 1880s, excavations have produced a wealth of evidence from which it is possible to interpret what life was like for hunters at the edge of Europe. Britain's oldest work of art, a fine engraving of a horse found in Robin Hood Cave and the recent cave art discoveries in Church Hole connects us with the great era of cave painting on the continent.

The discovery of cave art at Creswell Crags in 2003 was the most important find from the British Palaeolithic since the discovery of 500,000 year old hominid remains from Boxgrove, West Sussex in the mid 1990s.

This project will mark the culmination of major infrastructure improvements at Creswell Crags over the last 10 years with the aim of improving the conservation and management of this internationally significant site including:

Removal and landscape restoration of the former sewage works from the Creswell Crags gorge to create an event space, outdoor class room, interpretation point, picnic area and led to major improvements to the access and facilities at Creswell Crags : Cost £4.2 million by Severn Trent Water, the single largest contribution ever made in the UK by a private company to conservation and management of a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The relocation of the B6042 that used to pass through the gorge and has now been diverted at a cost of £1.2 million and the restoration of the valley with the support of Derbyshire County Council, Lafarge Aggregates, and the East Midlands Development Agency.

The conservation and access improvements to the main caves including a protective roof to the Arch Cave, new steps to Pin Hole and Church Hole Caves and an interior viewing platform and steps in Robin Hood Cave.

Repair and restoration of the lake including dredging and repairs to the dam wall and repairs and resurfacing of the lakeside walk.

Creation of an innovative virtual museum on the internet at www.creswell-crags.org.uk in partnership with the British Museum, enabling visitors to see together for the first time representative elements of the archaeological and palaeontological collections, and creating a life long learning resource.

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© 2008 Creswell Heritage Trust