Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum

For some years now passers-by have been wondering what's going on behind the screens and locked doors of an imposing Victorian building on Exeter's Queen Street, pictured above.

Well, on Monday 18 Oct 2010, all will be revealed to the Friends of Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum when they welcome Nena Beric, above, Project Co-ordinator at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. As the Development Project Officer she has been intimately involved since the start in 2005.

When Prince Albert died in 1861, one of the Secretaries for the Great Exhibition and a Devon MP, Sir Stafford Northcote, proposed a memorial to Albert should be established in Exeter. An appeal for funds was launched and a meeting the following year created the blueprint for the Devon and Exeter Albert Memorial Institution. This was to be a new building on Queen Street housing a museum and art gallery, a free public library, a school of art and a college.

"An exquisite jewel box of a building; a Venetian casket. One of the most appealing treasures in Britain," is how the RAMM has been described by the architectural heritage consultant, writer and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank.

Updating the Museum has been an ambitious project involving the creation of new exhibition spaces and display galleries, a new collections store, improved visitor services including a better café, shop and toilet facilities and general repairs to the 140-year-old building.

Ms Beric will speak about the refurbishment of Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum, due to re-open in late 2011, at The Peter Hall in Budleigh Salterton. The talk begins at 7.30 pm.

For information about Fairlynch Museum click on http://www.devonmuseums.net/12/206/museum.html or telephone 01395 442666;
email: admin@fairlynchmuseum.co.uk