Candie Museum gets ready to reopen

The museum is always closed during January and it had been due to reopen on 29th January.

But Guernsey’s return to lockdown in late that month meant that was put on hold.

Head of Heritage Services Helen Glencross said staff had still been keeping busy.

‘A lot of curatorial team were able to work from home,’ she said.

‘A lot of the visitor assistants and a handful of other staff were redeployed and some have been working at the Community Vaccination Centre [Beau Sejour] and taking bookings.’

Museum staff were able to get back on site at the start of stage three last week and have been putting the finishing touches to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. The famous display would normally have been taken down by now.

‘We’ve been very lucky,’ said Mrs Glencross.

‘The Natural History Museum [which gives permission for the exhibition] has been very understanding and allowed the display to be extended to 16th May.

‘It’s a hugely popular exhibition.’

There is also a new display at the entrance of the museum, which shows some of the museum’s new acquisitions.

Currently that includes a World War One medal, an embroidery sample made by someone at the Biberach internment camp and a 1960s sweet jar, which still shows that a quarter of sweets would have cost 8d. There is also some modern acquisitions, such as a 2020 Channel Islands Pride flag.

Work has also been taking place in the Discovery Room, with a Viking longship being the new display.

‘We would love to see lots of people coming in,’ Mrs Glencross said.

‘We wanted to make sure we were open for Easter.’

However, the reopening of the other sites has been delayed by lockdown.

Castle Cornet would normally reopen at the end of March, but lockdown meant it was not yet ready.

Mrs Glencross said it would reopen on 30th April, along with the noonday gun. The other two museum sites – Fort Grey and the Naval Signals HQ – will also reopen then.

She added that they would be working with Visit Guernsey’s staycation campaign to encourage people to rediscover the local museums.

• Candie Museum opens at 10am on Good Friday.