A £3.5-million grant from the Heritage Lottery fund has seen the project on
its way, and the centre will be based in the Grade II-listed Old Magnus
Buildings in Appletongate.
Expected to attract 60,000 visitors a year once open, the attraction will
explore the events of the English Civil War (1642-1646) using virtual
reality.
Councillor Tony Roberts, chairman of Newark and Sherwood District Council's
leisure and environment committee, said: "Our new museum will... house a
treasure trove of objects, many of which have never been seen before in
public.”
Perhaps it’s not surprising that there has so far been no single museum
devoted to the English Civil War, since battlefields cover the length of
Britain from Marston Moor in North Yorkshire to two newly discovered sites
at Lostwithiel in Cornwall, which were added to the English Heritage
register this summer.
But Newark has a strong claim to house the centre as it was in the thick of the action throughout the war. Newark Castle was an important royalist stronghold, and the town controlled the main route north due to its location at the junction of the Fosse Way and the Great North Road. Both the town and castle endured three sieges and the garrison only surrendered in 1646 on the orders of Charles I himself. Parliamentarian forces were commanded to destroy the castle but the order was never fully obeyed as plague had broken out in the town, deterring Cromwell’s forces.
The Civil War Centre will open next autumn with an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the First World War. Until then visitors to Newark can follow the town’s 1.5 mile Civil War Trail which reveals evidence of Civil War battles, including the blackened stonework of the castle, stained by Parliamentary gunpowder, and the hole in the spire of St Mary Magdalene church, where a shot from a Parliamentarian canon is said to have struck in 1644.
But Newark has a strong claim to house the centre as it was in the thick of the action throughout the war. Newark Castle was an important royalist stronghold, and the town controlled the main route north due to its location at the junction of the Fosse Way and the Great North Road. Both the town and castle endured three sieges and the garrison only surrendered in 1646 on the orders of Charles I himself. Parliamentarian forces were commanded to destroy the castle but the order was never fully obeyed as plague had broken out in the town, deterring Cromwell’s forces.
The Civil War Centre will open next autumn with an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the First World War. Until then visitors to Newark can follow the town’s 1.5 mile Civil War Trail which reveals evidence of Civil War battles, including the blackened stonework of the castle, stained by Parliamentary gunpowder, and the hole in the spire of St Mary Magdalene church, where a shot from a Parliamentarian canon is said to have struck in 1644.
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