What feedback has the Mary Rose Museum had?
It’s going remarkably well. We had 50,000 visitors in our first month and were thrilled to have had such a high media profile for the launch. On our opening day, the museum was trending number two in the world. We’ve already had many visitors from overseas and our TripAdvisor rating is nearing 90 per cent excellents and very goods.
How many visitors do you expect?
We were initially cautious, but can now predict more than half a million a year.
The museum has capacity for 600 people. The building’s built in and over the dry dock in which the Mary Rose sits, which is a constraint. We’ve got to manage our visitors and how they come through, so we’re selling timed tickets.
The planned dwell time is 90 minutes, but many are taking longer. This is positive because it shows they like it, and we’re working out how to manage this.
How did you raise the funds?
When I came here 10 years ago, the Trust was battling an overdraft, as the conservation was so expensive.
The only way out of the situation was to build a sustainable museum and complete the conservation.
There’s never been any central government funding, so we rely on fund raising and donations.
The project’s cost £35m (US$53.1m, E40.5m) – £27m ($41m, E31.3m) for the design, building and exhibitions and £8m ($12.1m, E9.3m) for the final conservation. The Heritage Lottery Fund gave a £23m ($35m, E26.7m) investment plus other grants totalling £9.5m ($14.4m, E11m) over the past 18 years.
Without this, there wouldn’t be a Mary Rose Museum, but it was fundamental to the wish of the nation to save this iconic ship and the artefacts within her and put them on display.
How will ongoing work be funded?
We’re undergoing a five-year drying process. The temperature and humidity in which we keep the ship and museum is tightly controlled and continues the conservation, which is expensive. Our education outreach programme also needs funding.
I hope through the income of tickets, the shop, café and hospitality events we’ll get close to the amount we need to continue to maintain that tight environment and look after everything.
I’m running a fundraising appeal for a permanent endowment to build up a sum of money, which can be kept to produce an income from the interest to fund any shortfalls in our annual expenditure and future projects.
What are you most proud of?
As well as having a museum that’s talked about as being remarkable, I’m proud of the outreach and educational package that we’ve put together, especially for the work we do for those with special needs.
We set out eight years ago to be the best for access, both going out to and bringing in to, special needs. We do an awful lot of work, which is extremely well appreciated.
What are the future plans?
I’ve got to prepare for the hot box removal in five years time. We’ll do the work over the winter when our visitor numbers are at their lowest, as the physical work of taking the walls and ceiling down means we’ll have to close for a couple of months.
When complete, it’ll revolutionise the museum again – instead of looking at the hull through glass windows, visitors will stand in the centre of the ship.
I’d like to see galleries both underneath and around the outboard side of the ship in the future. We’ll also start to put back the original walls, cabins and ladders. There’s more of the ship to go in, so it can be even better interpreted.
As well as looking after the ship and objects, the conservators are involved in research of new methods of conserving water-logged materials. We’re world leaders in this and can do it for others.
We’re also doing research in conservation and maritime archaeology. We’ve got a massive, 50-year-old archive – the Mary Rose is the world’s largest maritime excavation – which needs digitalising so it’s accessible to researchers.
The future is massive here. This isn’t the closing phase of our project – it’s opening a new chapter.