Britain to open first 24-hour museum

Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 21:05:59|Editor: Shi Yinglun
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LONDON, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Museum of London plans to become the first museum in Britain that will open 24 hours a day, reported local newspaper Thursday.

As part of a 250-million-pound (323 million U.S. dollars) revamp, the museum is set to move to a new site in Farringdon in the center of London city and to welcome visitors in the middle of the night.

The Times newspaper said that from 2023, history lovers will be able to drop into the new Farringdon site to view macabre displays any time they please.

The new site is close to nightclubs as well as Smithfield meat market which opens very early in the morning. The museum's director hopes that a 24-hour museum will mirror the non-stop lifestyle of the capital.

"I can't think of a more 24-hour site," Sharon Ament, the museum's director, said. "I believe the Museum of London should try and be like London itself, and that really does mean that we have to be more open."

She revealed that millions of funding has been provided by organizations including the Heritiage Lottery Fund, leaving the museum 44 million pounds away from its ambition.

Two architects have been commissioned to draw up designs for the new museum which will have much larger space to display more objects.

The new site incorporates a railway line which will pass slowly through the basement of the museum, allowing passengers to get a glimpse of the displays.

The Museum of London, established in 1976 and located now in the City of London, documents the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It is the largest urban history collection in the world, with more than 6 million objects.

It opens daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and has drawn some 678,000 visitors in 2017. (1 British pounds = 1.29 U.S. dollars)

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