Rare medieval paintings at Hexham Abbey in Hexham have been given a lifeline after the Grade I listed building secured a £138,088 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant.
The funding is intended to protect the abbey’s internationally renowned collection, which is described as the largest group of medieval panel paintings in the UK. Conservation work is considered urgent, with concerns that the paintings could otherwise be “lost forever”.
A major collection at risk
The paintings are among the rare survivors of the destruction suffered by church imagery during the Commonwealth period in England. They include a screen in the choir featuring Northumbrian saints St Oswald, St Etheldreda and St Andrew.
A passageway linking the choir with the nave contains 16 canopied niches painted with images of the bishops of Hexham and Lindisfarne. Elsewhere in the abbey are panels depicting the Dance of Death, along with three separate series showing Christ, the Virgin and the Twelve Apostles.
The grant will help the abbey develop an application for a much larger award of almost £1 million. That planned funding would support extensive conservation work on the panel paintings and a rare collection of grave covers.
Plans to protect the paintings and improve visits
The wider project is also intended to change how visitors experience Hexham Abbey’s historic treasures. New digital interpretation would explain the crypt, the paintings and other parts of the abbey’s heritage, while helping to share their stories with wider audiences.
The plans include new “sensitive” lighting for the panels. According to the abbey, this would improve their presentation while helping protect them from degradation and the effects of climate change.
Improved digital signage and a new activity programme are also proposed. Abbey bosses say these measures would reduce barriers to access, attract more diverse audiences and support the organisation’s long-term sustainability.
Abbey welcomes initial support
Revd Canon David Glover, of Hexham Abbey, welcomed the initial award and credited National Lottery players with helping the abbey develop its plans.
“We are thrilled to have received this initial support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players we can now develop our plans for vital conservation work, community outreach and sharing the Abbey’s unique and amazing treasures with new audiences of all ages and backgrounds.”
The £138,088 award is an initial stage in the abbey’s plans. The larger grant application would be needed before the full conservation and visitor-access project could proceed at the scale outlined.