Arundel Museum opening just months away

However, as Al Dunn, a volunteer with the Arundel Museum Society explains, the realisation of a vision from half a century ago has been far from easy.

IT WAS a chilly morning, on December 6, 1962, when a public meeting was held at Arundel Town Hall to discuss the formation of a museum for the borough.

Under the chairmanship of the mayor, H. M. Jacob, the meeting resolved that a new group should be created to turn this dream into reality.

And so, the Arundel Museum Society was formed.

Initially it was a fairly low key and quiet beginning to the museum, which found its new home in the dimly-lit crypt below the Town Hall. It was far from glamorous, in the disused prison cells, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.

On opening the meeting, the mayor stated it had been the wish of himself and the other members of the council, for some time past, to provide Arundel with its own museum to house the many relics of the town’s past history and to place them on display in the best possible manner.

Now, almost 50 years to the very day the mayor uttered those words, Arundel will witness the completion of its new purpose-built museum.

The journey hasn’t always been an easy one. Over the years the museum moved from the Town Hall to the High Street and, more recently, to its temporary home in Crown Yard Mews.

The former mayor’s vision of Arundel’s “own museum” is rapidly coming to fruition, with building work on the new site well underway.

This time next year, Arundel will boast a purpose-built facility in a prime position between the main castle gate and the river.

H. M Jacob would have certainly been proud!

The new building will certainly change the riverside landscape beside Jubilee Gardens – visitors to last month’s Arundel Festival will have seen work on the museum’s roof beginning.

Since contractors, Farnise, started work on site at the beginning of June, the progress has been rapid.

The foundations have been laid, the skeleton of the walls are in place and the roof is being built.

The museum is taking shape!

By December, the first phase of construction should be completed.

The museum’s display area, education and exhibition centre, kitchen and reception area will then be fitted out in the final phase

It may have taken five decades but, if everything goes as planned, the museum should be up and running by late spring next year.