This donation will be added to the City of London Corporation and City Hall pledges of £180m (£110m and £70m respectively) towards the new £250m Museum of London project.
A gallery bearing the Goldsmiths’ name will be at the heart of the new Museum, showcasing the Cheapside Hoard together with highlights from the Company’s world-renowned Collection of historic and contemporary silver.
“We are thrilled to be playing our part in the new Museum of London as a Founding Partner. The Cheapside Hoard will be on permanent display alongside some of the best examples of the goldsmiths’ craft spanning over 450 years,” said Judith Cobham-Lowe, Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company.
This time last year Stanton Williams and Asif Khan, working together with conservation architect Julian Harrap and landscape design consultants J&L Gibbons, were named as architects as the plans for a new museum gained momentum.
“It is a great pleasure to be working in partnership with such an august, innovative and long-standing institution as the Goldsmiths’ Company,” said Museum of London Director, Sharon Ament. “Together we make a perfect partnership that couples ambition for the future with the long-view into the past, important qualities that will create an astounding experience for our visitors to the new Museum.”
A planning application will be made in 2018 to convert the disused general market at Smithfield and from 2022, when the new museum is scheduled to open, it is hoped visitor numbers will double from one million a year to more than two million.
