The grass isn’t necessarily greener for rural museums
They may often be ahead of their urban counterparts when it comes to collaboration and community involvement, but rural museums often struggle to recruit staff, lack a voice with policy-makers and could be hit hard by Brexit. By Geraldine Kendall Adams
The Success in the Sticks conference – held at Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle by the Cumbria Museum Consortium in the summer – highlighted the fact that there is a lot to look forward to in the rural museum sector.
Several large-scale capital redevelopments of museums in rural areas and museums about rural life will be finished in the coming years, including St Fagan’s National History Museum, just outside Cardiff, and Beamish: The Living Museum of the North, in County Durham. Other institutions, meanwhile, such as Gainsborough’s House in Suffolk and Kilmartin Museum in the Scottish Highlands have recently received major funding boosts for redevelopment projects (see box).
Those who work in the sector cite similar reasons as to why many rural museums are thriving; chief among those is that, out of necessity, institutions in rural locations have long developed a collaborative approach. Staff tend to take on a plurality of roles, while their institutions collaborate not just with other museums but also with local businesses and communities, to ensure their resources stretch as far as possible.
Community participation
Museums in Cornwall – partly through trying to counteract the peaks and troughs of tourism – have also proven to be ahead of the curve when it comes to building community participation she adds. An example is Citizen Curators, a work-based training programme for volunteers from local communities.
As well as establishing close community ties, this approach means that rural museums can act as a big fish in a small pond, with an impact – both economic and social – that can be far greater and more easily demonstrated than museums in more urban locations. This was an important factor in Kilmartin Museum’s successful £3m Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) bid towards its redevelopment, says the museum’s director, Sharon Webb.
“We used external consultants to work out the figures [of the economic impact],” says Webb. “We could demonstrate that it’s going to be really worth it.
“We don’t have the same access to sponsorship and philanthropy as a city museum, where more people are going to see a donor’s name on a plaque. We have to make an extra-special effort.”
Unique challenges
But working in rural regions comes with other unique challenges, some longstanding and others that have emerged more recently. One of the biggest issues is recruitment.
“It can be hard to entice people here, especially for short-term jobs,” says Webb. “Museums Galleries Scotland does offer a lot of training – a lot of our volunteers are highly skilled, but specialist staff are hard to come by.”
Finding accommodation and travelling long distances – some of Webb’s colleagues commute more than 30 miles – are among the factors that can deter applicants, as can the lack of available work for people’s partners.
Bob Clark, the director of Auchindrain Township in the Scottish Highlands and chair of the Rural Museums Network, echoes this point. “Whereas a very good job on a decent wage might attract 30 to 40 applicants in a city, out in the sticks, it might get three or four,” he says. Brexit may make this issue worse, says Clark, particularly in Scotland, where museums are often reliant on inward migration to fill roles.
Like many Scottish museums, Auchindrain has a “grow your own” policy, taking in local young people at an early stage of their careers and training them up on the job. This approach has many benefits to both the museum and the wider community, but it carries the risk that the young person may nevertheless decide to move away, taking those years of training with them.
An organisational review at Kilmartin Museum exploring new solutions, such as remote working for posts such as finance. In Cornwall, some museums have taken to sharing staff – in Falmouth, for example, two institutions share a digital engagement officer.
“Boards need to be a mix of backgrounds and skills in order to avoid group-think”, says Kell. “I sometimes ask whether we really can’t recruit more diverse people.”
To counter this problem, the CMP has produced a good-governance guide and established a rural diversity network. The partnership also runs the Rural Proofing Resilience programme, offering leadership and skills development for people in the county’s museums.
External factors
As the rural sector is often more reliant on tourism than urban museums, institutions can be at the mercy of factors outside their control. Brexit – and the potential impact it could have on overseas tourism – is a looming worry for many because of the importance of the EU market.
However, some museums anticipate a rise in domestic visitors next year, while others have reported an increase in overseas visitors in the past few years because of the weak pound.
Another issue that affects rural sites is the weather. With an unseasonal cold snap followed by an extended heatwave, this year has been particularly trying, says Clark, affecting the site itself – much of which is outdoors – and visitor numbers. “We are getting used to a world in which the conventional patterns of weather that we’ve known since childhood cannot be relied on,” Clark says.
Anticipating future heatwaves, some rural museums are upgrading their outdoor options. Others have creative solutions to engage visitors during hot weather: Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, Cornwall, holds mini-science demos and “science busking” sessions on the beach.
Another common concern among rural museum professionals is that they are too remote from government to have a significant voice among policy-makers. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has produced rural proofing guidance to check that all government policy applies to rural regions.
But Kell says there is scant evidence that this has been carried out by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), citing the £20m Cultural Development Fund, which launched in June and is specifically aimed at “towns and cities across the country”. “It’s not evident that the rural proofing process was carried out in this case,” she says, adding that the CMP has raised it as a concern with the DCMS.
To address the imbalance in representation, Arts Council England has a Rural Stakeholders Group, which includes the Rural Museums Network, and says it will ensure its new 10-year strategy takes into account rural issues. It also plans to publish updated versions of its rural position statement and rural evidence and data review this autumn, which will identify strengths and weaknesses in its investment patterns in rural England.
With both Arts Council England and the Scottish government working on their strategies for culture, the next few months will be a vital time for the rural sector to highlight its concerns – and shout about its success.
The annual meeting of the Rural Museums Network, which represents UK museums in rural regions and those with rural-life collections, is at Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse, Norfolk, on 30 September–1 October.
The museum recently received a £3m HLF grant towards a £6m project to transform it into a landmark centre for culture and natural tourism, with the aim of putting the archaeologically significant Kilmartin Glen on the international tourism map.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk, England
The home of the artist Thomas Gainsborough has received a £4.7m HLF grant towards a £7.5m project to turn it into a national centre for Thomas Gainsborough, and a leading heritage museum and art gallery for the region.
St Fagan’s National History Museum, near Cardiff, Wales
The museum is nearing the end of a £30m redevelopment project, Making History, which includes new galleries and an iron age farmstead. Its final phase is due to open in October.
Beamish: The Living Museum of the North, Durham, England
An £18m expansion is under way that involves a 1950s town, farm and Georgian coaching inn being built. The first exhibit, a quilter’s cottage, opened in July.
World Heritage Lake District arts project, Cumbria, England
Several large-scale capital redevelopments of museums in rural areas and museums about rural life will be finished in the coming years, including St Fagan’s National History Museum, just outside Cardiff, and Beamish: The Living Museum of the North, in County Durham. Other institutions, meanwhile, such as Gainsborough’s House in Suffolk and Kilmartin Museum in the Scottish Highlands have recently received major funding boosts for redevelopment projects (see box).
Those who work in the sector cite similar reasons as to why many rural museums are thriving; chief among those is that, out of necessity, institutions in rural locations have long developed a collaborative approach. Staff tend to take on a plurality of roles, while their institutions collaborate not just with other museums but also with local businesses and communities, to ensure their resources stretch as far as possible.
“Museums here have to look beyond their own four walls or they’d never get anything done,” says Emmie Kell, the head of the Cornwall Museums Partnership (CMP), an Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation that supports museums in one of England’s most sparsely populated counties.
“They’ve got a sophisticated position on collaborating between one another and private sector partners. It’s really quite advanced in Cornwall in a way that isn’t reflected in cities, where competition makes it more difficult to work with each other in an equitable way.”
Community participation
Museums in Cornwall – partly through trying to counteract the peaks and troughs of tourism – have also proven to be ahead of the curve when it comes to building community participation she adds. An example is Citizen Curators, a work-based training programme for volunteers from local communities.
As well as establishing close community ties, this approach means that rural museums can act as a big fish in a small pond, with an impact – both economic and social – that can be far greater and more easily demonstrated than museums in more urban locations. This was an important factor in Kilmartin Museum’s successful £3m Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) bid towards its redevelopment, says the museum’s director, Sharon Webb.
“We used external consultants to work out the figures [of the economic impact],” says Webb. “We could demonstrate that it’s going to be really worth it.
“We don’t have the same access to sponsorship and philanthropy as a city museum, where more people are going to see a donor’s name on a plaque. We have to make an extra-special effort.”
Unique challenges
But working in rural regions comes with other unique challenges, some longstanding and others that have emerged more recently. One of the biggest issues is recruitment.
“It can be hard to entice people here, especially for short-term jobs,” says Webb. “Museums Galleries Scotland does offer a lot of training – a lot of our volunteers are highly skilled, but specialist staff are hard to come by.”
Finding accommodation and travelling long distances – some of Webb’s colleagues commute more than 30 miles – are among the factors that can deter applicants, as can the lack of available work for people’s partners.
Bob Clark, the director of Auchindrain Township in the Scottish Highlands and chair of the Rural Museums Network, echoes this point. “Whereas a very good job on a decent wage might attract 30 to 40 applicants in a city, out in the sticks, it might get three or four,” he says. Brexit may make this issue worse, says Clark, particularly in Scotland, where museums are often reliant on inward migration to fill roles.
Like many Scottish museums, Auchindrain has a “grow your own” policy, taking in local young people at an early stage of their careers and training them up on the job. This approach has many benefits to both the museum and the wider community, but it carries the risk that the young person may nevertheless decide to move away, taking those years of training with them.
An organisational review at Kilmartin Museum exploring new solutions, such as remote working for posts such as finance. In Cornwall, some museums have taken to sharing staff – in Falmouth, for example, two institutions share a digital engagement officer.
Recruitment issues also affect museum governance, says the CMP’s Kell. Lack of availability means trustees can appear on several boards – a lack of diversity that can have a negative impact on an organisation in the long term.
“Boards need to be a mix of backgrounds and skills in order to avoid group-think”, says Kell. “I sometimes ask whether we really can’t recruit more diverse people.”
To counter this problem, the CMP has produced a good-governance guide and established a rural diversity network. The partnership also runs the Rural Proofing Resilience programme, offering leadership and skills development for people in the county’s museums.
External factors
As the rural sector is often more reliant on tourism than urban museums, institutions can be at the mercy of factors outside their control. Brexit – and the potential impact it could have on overseas tourism – is a looming worry for many because of the importance of the EU market.
However, some museums anticipate a rise in domestic visitors next year, while others have reported an increase in overseas visitors in the past few years because of the weak pound.
Another issue that affects rural sites is the weather. With an unseasonal cold snap followed by an extended heatwave, this year has been particularly trying, says Clark, affecting the site itself – much of which is outdoors – and visitor numbers. “We are getting used to a world in which the conventional patterns of weather that we’ve known since childhood cannot be relied on,” Clark says.
Anticipating future heatwaves, some rural museums are upgrading their outdoor options. Others have creative solutions to engage visitors during hot weather: Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, Cornwall, holds mini-science demos and “science busking” sessions on the beach.
Another common concern among rural museum professionals is that they are too remote from government to have a significant voice among policy-makers. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has produced rural proofing guidance to check that all government policy applies to rural regions.
But Kell says there is scant evidence that this has been carried out by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), citing the £20m Cultural Development Fund, which launched in June and is specifically aimed at “towns and cities across the country”. “It’s not evident that the rural proofing process was carried out in this case,” she says, adding that the CMP has raised it as a concern with the DCMS.
To address the imbalance in representation, Arts Council England has a Rural Stakeholders Group, which includes the Rural Museums Network, and says it will ensure its new 10-year strategy takes into account rural issues. It also plans to publish updated versions of its rural position statement and rural evidence and data review this autumn, which will identify strengths and weaknesses in its investment patterns in rural England.
With both Arts Council England and the Scottish government working on their strategies for culture, the next few months will be a vital time for the rural sector to highlight its concerns – and shout about its success.
The annual meeting of the Rural Museums Network, which represents UK museums in rural regions and those with rural-life collections, is at Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse, Norfolk, on 30 September–1 October.
Redevelopment projects
Kilmartin Museum, Argyll and Bute, Scotland
The museum recently received a £3m HLF grant towards a £6m project to transform it into a landmark centre for culture and natural tourism, with the aim of putting the archaeologically significant Kilmartin Glen on the international tourism map.
Gainsborough’s House, Suffolk, England
The home of the artist Thomas Gainsborough has received a £4.7m HLF grant towards a £7.5m project to turn it into a national centre for Thomas Gainsborough, and a leading heritage museum and art gallery for the region.
St Fagan’s National History Museum, near Cardiff, Wales
The museum is nearing the end of a £30m redevelopment project, Making History, which includes new galleries and an iron age farmstead. Its final phase is due to open in October.
Beamish: The Living Museum of the North, Durham, England
An £18m expansion is under way that involves a 1950s town, farm and Georgian coaching inn being built. The first exhibit, a quilter’s cottage, opened in July.
World Heritage Lake District arts project, Cumbria, England
Lakeland Arts and the Wordsworth Trust led a £3.3m bid to the Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund for a package of capital investment in a range of museums in the region. The trust is undertaking a £6.2m redevelopment of Dove Cottage.