Royal Marines Museum

The National Museum of the Royal Navy has announced that the closure of the main galleries of the Royal Marines Museum will take place on 1 April.

As a result, the public galleries of the museum at Eastney will close, but the sea front car park and the Royal Marines Memorial Gardens will remain open to the public.

The decision to close is part of the development plan following the awarding, in 2016, of £13.85m from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the SeaMore project which will allow for the much-needed move of the Royal Marines Museum to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. This has the potential of increasing visitor numbers to the museum twenty-fold.

The new Royal Marines Museum will open in 2020 and be a state of the art museum containing the very latest in technology and hands-on activity.  It will occupy the present Action Stations building, one of the original Georgian Boathouses, close to the Victory Gate visitor entrance.  The main part of the building, including the historic Mast Pond in front, will be completely refurbished to provide a new museum.

The funding will also create the country’s newest national museum collection in an innovative Centre for Discovery at the National Museum’s base in Portsmouth. The project was boosted by a very welcome £2million contribution from the LIBOR fund for military-related charities. As part of the Centre for Discovery, over two million artefacts, currently kept in 30 separate stores within 14 buildings across nine sites, will be relocated and made accessible to visitors in a bold move to revolutionise the way the epic story of the Royal Navy is told.

www.nmrn.org.uk