The Sunderland Maritime Heritage Museum, dedicated to preserving the city’s rich shipbuilding legacy, is grappling with a lack of space as its collection continues to grow.
According to Jim Sullivan, the museum’s vice-chair, donations of artefacts and memorabilia are so frequent that they’ve “literally run out of space” to store them.
Founded in 1999, the museum houses an extensive array of artefacts, documents, and ship models, and its workshop is used for vessel restoration.
Among the highlights is a tenth-scale model of HMS Venerable, famously tied to Sunderland’s Jack Crawford, who served aboard the ship during a pivotal sea battle in 1797.
The museum’s current location, an industrial unit on Church Street East, limits its visibility, with many residents unaware of its existence.
Volunteers, who range in age from their 30s to 80s, hope to either expand into a neighboring unit or relocate entirely to a more prominent site near the riverside or seafront.
“It would be a step forward,” Sullivan said of the potential expansion, though he acknowledged that such a move wouldn’t fully satisfy their ambitions.
Relocating to a high-traffic area, he believes, would help the museum attract more visitors and better showcase Sunderland’s maritime history.
While discussions are still in their infancy, the museum’s growing collection and ongoing efforts highlight the urgent need for a larger, more accessible space to continue its mission of honoring Sunderland’s shipbuilding heritage.
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