A new £4.5 million Museum will be opened at Creswell Crags. Picture © 2001 Creswell Heritage Trust
Creswell Crags, the Iron Age haven of relics between the Peak District National Park and Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, will become "one of Britain's top heritage sites" after organisers at the prehistoric Midlands base announced a £4.5 million on-site museum and heritage centre among £14 million of investment.
The Heritage Lottery Fund has provided more than £4 million for a new Ice Age centre, adding to £750,000 from the European Regional Development Fund and £800,000 pledged by the East Midlands Development Agency.
Heritage Officer Rebecca Clay told the Worksop Guardian the Crags would display "some of the most exciting Ice Age artefacts ever found locally," including an animal rib engraved with a horse's head which is believed to have been the first example of art from the period found in Britain when it was discovered almost 150 years ago.
Temporary exhibitions will include loans from The British Museum at the limestone gorge of caves, where stone tools and animal remains have evidenced life in the area from between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago, preserved by metal grills and improved by protective roofs, new steps and an interior viewing platform as part of a project which began ten years ago.
Sir David Attenborough will officially open the visitor centre on June 27 2009, alongside a "sound and light spectacular," book signings by archaeologists Paul Pettitt and Paul Bahn, carving workshops, a ritual totem burning and an ancient treasures roadshow.
