News

Dorset Museum celebrates winning four awards at Dorset Tourism Awards, including Gold for Accessible tourism

January 30, 2023

Dorset Tourism Awards 22-23

Staff and volunteers are celebrating after picking up four trophies at the 10th Dorset Tourism Awards held at the Tank Museum in Bovington last week. Presented by broadcaster and journalist Jordan Clarke, 53 winner trophies were presented to tourism businesses and attractions operating across the county.

Dorset Museum was thrilled to have won three prestigious awards including Gold for Accessible and Inclusive TourismSilver for Large Visitor Attraction of the Year, and Bronze for Business Events Venue of the Year. Taste at Dorset Museum was awarded Silver for Café/Tearoom of the Year.

Since reopening in May 2021 following a £16.4m National Lottery Heritage Fund-funded redevelopment project, the Museum has delivered an exciting and wide-ranging exhibition, learning and events programme, and grown its venue hire and weddings business. Its current special exhibition ‘I Grew Up 80s’, running until 26 February, has attracted record visitor numbers and amazing feedback from a wide range of age groups.

Increasing access for all to the Museum and its collections lay at the heart of the redevelopment project and continues to shape everything the Museum does. Step-free access was created at the front entrance as well as lift access to all the public Museum spaces. New facilities include a Changing Places toilet and Calm Space, and visitors can pick up resources to support their visits such as braille guides and sensory backpacks. The galleries include tactile objects, braille captions and British Sign Language on film displays.

Head of Learning, Emma Talbot said, “We’re thrilled to have won Gold for the prestigious Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Award. During our redevelopment, we worked with disabled members of the local community to ensure that the Museum was accessible as possible. We received wonderful feedback from visitors since opening. Many of them faced barriers to visiting us previously. We continue to offer events to welcome the whole community including relaxed evenings for families, British sign language tours and monthly free openings.”

Taste at Dorset Museum was awarded Silver for Café/Tearoom of the Year. Taste partners with Dorset Museum to provide a popular café experience at the Museum, offering tasty freshly made food and drinks in beautiful surroundings featuring photographs from the Museum’s collection. Taste owner Todd Moffat said, “We are thrilled to be awarded Silver in the Café & Tearoom category at the Dorset Tourism Awards 22/23. Taste Restaurants Ltd are delighted to be working in close partnership with the Dorset Museum and its great team, operating Taste Café, and, providing catering for conferences, banqueting and weddings in such a beautiful and prestigious venue in Dorchester!”

The Museum also scooped a Bronze award for Business Events Venue of the Year.  Income from the venue hire is an important part of the Museum’s sustainable business strategy. This enables the Museum to continue to care for its collection and offer popular exhibition, learning and community engagement programmes.

The Museum’s Commercial Director, Roger Maughan said: “This is a wonderful accolade for Museum staff and volunteers to be recognised as a major venue for conferences events and weddings.”

On winning Silver for Large Visitor Attraction, Interim Director, Elizabeth Selby said: “Dorset Museum now has the facilities, collections and programmes to be a major player on the national stage. We were delighted to win the Silver award for Large Visitor Attraction, but are aiming for gold next time! We’d like to thank all our staff, volunteers and supporters for making the Museum such a fabulous and welcoming place to work and visit.”

Community Exhibition

18 February - 22 June 2023

The Art of Seeing: An exhibition of photographs by Dorchester Camera Club

The Club is delighted to have this opportunity to exhibit some of their members’ prints in the Dorset Museum together with an audio-visual presentation.

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Tours

21 March 2023, 11:00am - 12:00pm

Archaeology Highlights Tour

Explore archaeological treasures held by Dorset Museum – from Bronze Age gold to medieval silver -  in this volunteer-led tour.

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Special Exhibition

22 March - 25 June 2023

ARTIST ROOMS: Louise Bourgeois

Explore the work of Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), one of the most important figures of modern and contemporary art. This spring Dorset Museum will show a major presentation of her work in this Artist Rooms touring exhibition featuring works jointly owned by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.

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Dorset Museum Music Society

22 March 2023, 7:30pm

Cordiera Piano Trio

A varied programme ranging from J.S. Bach’s most revolutionary son to a vivid and exciting contemporary American work by way of two pillars of the standard chamber music repertoire.

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Museum after hours

23 March 2023, 5:00pm - 6:30pm

FREE | Museum After Hours

Join us for an opportunity to explore the Museum at this FREE late opening.

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FULLY BOOKED

23 March 2023, 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Joanna Quinn in conversation with Tracy Chevalier

Spend an evening with Joanna Quinn and best-selling author Tracy Chevalier as they discuss Quinn’s debut novel, The Whalebone Theatre, a brilliant coming-of-age story set in Dorset before and during World War II.

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Special Event

24 March 2023, 6:00pm - 9:00pm

This is Now

The Friendly Society of Artistic Labourers and Dorset Museum invites you to a spectacular showcase of contemporary art, design, media, music, and performance. Inspired by…

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Tours

28 March 2023, 11:00am - 12:00noon

Dorset Museum Highlights Tour

Explore 250 million years of Dorset’s history in this volunteer-led highlights tour of Dorset Museum. Discover Roman mosaics, fossils from the Jurassic Coast, Thomas Hardy manuscripts and the sculptures of Elisabeth Frink – and plenty more along the way.

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Workshop

1 April 2023, 10:00am to 4:30pm

One day life painting pose

This is a structured class that will take students through the traditional monochrome underpainting approach to painting the figure in oils. Same pose all day…

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