David Livingston Trust wins HLF Stage 1 support

We are delighted that the David Livingstone Trust (DLT) have won HLF Stage 1 approval for a radical transformation of the great man’s birthplace and museum at Blantyre, on the banks of the Clyde. Along with exhibition designers, Event, landscape architects, ERZ, engineers David Narro Associates and Harley Haddow, and the support of conservation architect, Andrew Wright, Hoskins have worked closely with DLT and the National Trust for Scotland, to update and expand Livingstone’s story, using the wealth of hitherto hidden artefacts which the Scots missionary collected over his lifetime of exploration. The design builds on ERZ’s award winning landscape masterplan for the surrounding woodland, beginning in the tiny single tenement room of his birth. Visitors then follow his life through the adjoining refurbished 18th century buildings, thence to a new wing, housing exhibition space, meeting rooms and environmentally controlled storage, to reconnect with the wider landscape and the start of further exploration. The team will now go on to develop the HLF Stage 2 application with the aim of the new Museum opening in 2017.