Brooklands Museum Awarded £239,000 by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to explore new story project for diverse audiences
23 January 2024
Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, Brooklands Stories Uncovered is a storytelling project with an aim of working with communities, exploring the diversity of historic people at Brooklands, and telling their stories so that community partners feel represented and inspired.
The project, launched in 2023, is an exciting opportunity to explore the existing stories of Brooklands’ heyday from a different perspective, recognising previously hidden facets of the lives of Brooklands pioneers, and learning how these helped shape and form their innovations and achievements. The Museum has recruited two new members of staff for the project and is sourcing a new system to manage the collection records, so that the stories uncovered can be shared with wider audiences.
The Museum hopes Brooklands Stories Uncovered will enable it to build relationships with new audience groups which include neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ audiences, and young people who have additional challenges in their lives. Brooklands has always been defined by its people and their achievements, where a community of inventiveness and competitiveness thrived. Using Brooklands’ history of diversity, the hope is to create a legacy of permanent and digital interpretation, inspired through the stories uncovered.
Alex Patterson, Director and CEO, Brooklands Museum said, “We are thrilled to have received this support thanks to National Lottery players and are confident the project will help highlight Brooklands’ stories of diversity and our ongoing commitment to being inclusive to all. This project embodies our vision to inspire all people to shape the future through Brooklands history of innovation and endeavour, bringing a new perspective to our collection that will enable more people to connect with our story in different ways.”
Stuart McLeod, Director of England - London & South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said, “We’re proud to support Brooklands Museum with this project which will work with new audiences to identify and record the undiscovered stories from their fascinating collection. As the UK’s largest funder of heritage, it’s important that the projects we fund are inclusive, representative and help to broaden understanding. Working with new audience groups will mean that Brooklands Museum’s collections will be opened up to new communities to discover and share their own stories.”