The Malt House at Harvington Hall – an Elizabethan manor house near Kidderminster – will be transformed thanks to £470,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The 18th century malting kiln will be restored to provide a ground floor visitor centre featuring an audio-visual exhibition and displays on how the Tudors lived on the former 6,000-acre Harvington Estate.

The upper floors will provide a classroom/meeting room as well as a research area complete with archives.

Restoration work will start later this year and will involve a landscaping project to provide new with access to the gardens.

Michael Hodgetts, vice chair of the Hall’s management committee, said: “The project will provide much needed extra space for the Hall’s activities and an entirely new exciting area for our visitors to explore.”