CALLINGTON?S history is being brought to life with a lottery grant of almost £50,000. The grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has been awarded to restore the Victorian Chapel in Liskeard Road where the town?s museum is based and to increase and update the museum display area, making it more user friendly. Archives will be catalogued to make access easier and publications such as a town heritage and education packs will aim to make the heritage of Callington available to all. The project is a collaboration between Callington Town Council and the Museum Trust. Callington Portreeve Denise Winfindale said: ?In the town survey people said the museum wants dragging into the 21st century. They also said we need to make more of the area and its heritage. This grant will help us to do just that.? Town councillor Jeremy Gist said the chapel building, which had housed the museum for about 15 years, was in need of a refurbishment: ?The museum trust has a terrific archive and money will help more people have access to it. ?The building will be more disabled-friendly with a new entrance and improved display areas. We are very fortunate to get this grant and it is a reflection of the amount of work that has been put in by various people, particularly our town clerk Linda Small. A survey in 2003 identified work that needed to be done on the chapel but it was not possible to get a grant for that work alone, said Linda. ?We had to put a whole project together which included increasing the awareness of Callington?s heritage and making it more accessible to everyone,? she said. ?A lot of money is going into completing the archiving of all the materials so we can make it available on the internet. ?Heritage leaflets have been designed and education packs will bring in interest from the schools. ?Without this grant we would have had to put the cost of the chapel renovation work on the precept so it is saving the tax payers money. The museum is manned by volunteers and hosts three exhibitions a year, spanning all aspects of the social and economic history of Callington and surrounding parishes. There is a permanent display of prehistory, mining and models of Callington town centre c1840 and the railway station. There is also a changing display of artefacts and documents with a programme of talks and visits throughout the year. The museum is open from April to October on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays from 10am to 4pm and entry is free.
