Major new city attraction will make history

Plymouth is set to invest in a major visitor attraction that will proudly bring to life the city’s rich history and tell the stories of some of the city’s legends and heroes.

Cabinet will fire the starting pistol on 3 September on plans for an exciting historic and cultural centre that breathes life into Plymouth’s most influential historic figures such as Scott, Darwin and Drake, and tells some of the city’s most fascinating and intriguing stories.

Plymouth City Council hopes to attract more visitors, create local jobs and boost the city’s economy, as well as providing more opportunities for residents to discover the city they live in by developing a ‘not to be missed’ attraction that will open by January 2018. 

The ambitious plans will transform the existing Museum on North Hill into a cutting-edge, interactive centre, three times its existing size in a project that will need a £21 million investment. These plans improve and add to previous proposals for a History Centre’.

The Council plans to bid for up to £13 million  from the Heritage Lottery’s national programme, plus smaller bids to other funding bodies. However, due to the economic benefits to the city, Cabinet is being asked to agree to a financial commitment of £3.5 million from the Council’s Investment Fund.

Leader of the Council, Councillor Tudor Evans, said: “It’s time to think big. If we want to compete for national and international tourism we must have attractions that people want to visit! When we launched Plymouth as Britain’s Ocean City, we meant it. This is one of the major pieces of work that will ensure we live up to our new title.”

“This new attraction will transform the way people discover the city's history and culture using the very latest in audio and visual technology. The £21 million project will see the Museum turned on its head. It will be exciting, interesting and will attract visitors in its own right.”

Deputy Leader, Councillor Peter Smith, said: “The basic concept is to bring together the city's historic objects and archives with films from the South West Film and Television Archive and the photographs from the South West Image Bank to tell the amazing and unique stories that are currently hidden!

“We’ll tell the story of Scott, Darwin, the Mayflower, Drake, the Naval dockyard, the Beatles on the Hoe, the blitz, the Cattedown bones and of pirates. We want to create a unique visitor attraction that will blow people away by its innovation and imagination. We want people to discover their own history and journey using technology and we also want to trailblaze using the latest technology and collect the history of the future!”

Early conversations with city leaders show strong support for the project, which will link with Plymouth University, Plymouth College of Art, the MOD, the Register Office, the South West Film and Television Archives and the South West Image Bank Archive, plus many others. The National Archives are also said to be pleased with the Council’s new plans to showcase the city’s collections.

More detail of the project will emerge later in the year after interested groups have been consulted and information is prepared for funding bids. The Council is keen to stress that there is plenty of opportunity for those interested to feed into discussions and shape the vision and direction of the centre. Currently the main themes of the attraction which will shape plans are:

• Touch, don’t just look! - visitors will get involved and touch displays – they will not be passive recipients.
• Discover - visitors will find, uncover and engage with the stories behind the collections in different ways.
• A living archive - artists and other practitioners will use and develop the collections so that they grow and remain relevant for future generations.
• Inspirational and unique - people will be proud of the beautiful things we look after as a city and will shout out about our collections of national and international interest

Councillor Evans added: “We will create a city attraction that will inspire people's curiosity to discover more about themselves, the city they live in and the global impact that Plymouth had on the modern world.

“They will ‘walk in their ancestors’ footsteps’, and find out more about their own family history; they will explore 500 years of Plymouth’s maritime heritage and discover more about the extraordinary lives of the people of Plymouth; or they might simply be inspired by beautiful and strange objects.

“When we pull this off, it will be the biggest thing ever to happen to Plymouth in terms of celebrating our history and heritage. It will be epic!”