Major plans to 'transform and rejuvenate' Sunderland's Museum and Winter Gardens

Councillors were updated on Sunderland City Council’s plans for the Grade II-listed building and cultural institution this week, as part of a wider presentation on cultural venues across Wearside.

Following the closure of the city library’s Fawcett Street site in 2016 due to budget cuts, the library subsequently moved into the Museum and Winter Gardens and has remained there since.

However, the towering Culture House development at Keel Square is set to house city library services when it opens in autumn, 2025, and the move would leave free space within the city’s historic museum.

In a presentation to councillors on Tuesday (January 14, 2025) major redevelopment plans for the future of Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens were outlined.

The presentation said the proposals would “transform and rejuvenate the museum”, with improvements to the electrical and mechanical systems, as well as turning the main entrance of the museum into Mowbray Park.

Other redevelopment plans include “improving visitor flow” and “navigation”, more social spaces and making the shop, retail space and café the central part of the building, as well as establishing two new ground floor gallery spaces.

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This would include the “Creative Sunderland” space (formerly the pottery gallery) and the “Sunderland Gallery”, where the city centre’s library is currently based.

The council also hopes to improve access to the museum’s collection with more learning and community engagement, as well as establishing a new “immersive school and community learning space”.

This space, which will be called the ‘growing space’, is expected to use the natural environment and will “book-end with the winter gardens and connect with Mowbray Park.”

The update was given to councillors on the Economic Prosperity Scrutiny Committee at its latest meeting on January 14, 2025, at City Hall.

Councillors heard the council had already secured development funding in 2022 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and that a “delivery phase application” to help fund redevelopment works would be submitted in spring, 2025.

Catherine Auld, the council’s director of economy, culture and sustainability, said the proposals were about making the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens “look and feel different”.

“What we really want to do is to use it as a transformational project and to turn the entrance of the museum into Mowbray Park so you can better connect the natural environment and the Museum and Winter Gardens and some new areas,” she said.

“The idea is to make use of ‘growing space’ and new ground floor galleries, which will take advantage of the fact that the library will be coming out of the Museum and Winter Gardens because we will have the Culture House development, which will be home to the use of the library.

“So it’s a really exciting project, we’re at a point where we have the full proposals ready to go […] obviously it’s a medium-term programme in terms of securing that delivery phase funding and then moving that through in terms of going out to get the contractor and moving that development programme forward.

“We’re working with Arts Council England and have already secured some money for a programme called MEND, which is around emergency repairs and we’re on-site with some repairs in terms of the roof at the moment and will continue to apply for other funding sources of a similar nature.

“We have also got some public sector decarbonisation funding which has been secured, which will support us in terms of some of the decarbonisation work that we have programmed in 2025.

“You can see that the stage that we’re at now is a really important stage in terms of looking forward to that next delivery phase.”

The work around the museum’s collection is also seen as a key part of the redevelopment funding bid, including exploring opportunities to “tell some stories in a way that we haven’t been able to do”, as well as a focus on “collections care” and “learning and community engagement”.

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Culture bosses said there could be opportunities to rotate items on public display more often, as well as improved digital access to the museum’s collection and even taking items out to communities.

Council officer Catherine Auld added: “It’s about making it look and feel different in terms of the way people engage with the museum.

“It’s got a really strong track record and really strong visitor numbers but it needs to move forward in terms of that look and feel.”

Back in January, 2024, Sunderland City Council’s Planning and Highways Committee approved vital repairs and conservation work at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens to safeguard the original 1879 structure for future generations.

This included repairs to the roofing, structural timber, external joinery and glazing, as well as “addressing damage to internal areas caused by active water ingress to the building”.

A design and access statement submitted with the council plans noted the Grade II-listed museum building had been developed several times since its original construction.

This included expansion in the 1960s with a “large modernist extension on the site of the former winter gardens” and a new entrance building and winter gardens being built in the early 2000s.

The city council, as applicant, said the museum was of “national significance as the earliest municipal museum outside of London, and a reflection of widespread social reform – particularly relating to education of the working class – during the 19th century”.

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A committee report, prepared by council planning officers, said repairs would “ensure that the architectural and historic integrity and significance of the listed building will be conserved” while “sustaining its use” as a museum.

According to the presentation to councillors this week (January 14, 2025), the time frame for the delivery of new redevelopment proposals at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens is 2025 – 2029.

The delivery phase application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund is expected to be submitted in May, 2025.