Britain’s oldest provincial learned society and second-oldest museum is set to be ‘reimagined’ into a leading heritage destination.
Founded in 1710, Lincolnshire’s Spalding Gentlemen’s Society (SGS) grew into a national and international membership with a museum at its heart, and today still thrives as an original eighteenth century ‘cabinet of curiosities’.
From a small coffee-house gathering the Society quickly grew into a museum, library and archive with the ‘Original Collection’ of more than 5,000 items surviving largely intact, many in original cabinets.
The Collection offers a history of museums and collecting, as well as of provincial life in the Enlightenment, a period of discovery during the 17th and 18th centuries based around reason, science, and individualism.
Now the museum is set for the first large-scale redisplay of its collections in more than a century after the Society was awarded £45,880 from Art Fund, the national charity for museums and galleries.
The ambitious ‘Museum Reimagined’ project will bring fresh perspectives to the displays at its purpose-built 1911 Broad Street building, which is currently closed for repairs and building works after separate funding.
While temporary exhibitions are currently on show at Ayscoughfee Hall Museum in Spalding, the Broad Street venue is set to reopen in spring 2027 with its reimagined collections on display.
Among artefacts are early accounts of India, the Caribbean and the Americas; medieval manuscripts; hundreds of early prints and maps; archaeological specimens from across the globe; an important textile and costume collection; and objects relating to the history of everyday life in Britain from the Iron Age to the 21st century.
More details about the Museum can be found at www.sgsoc.org
For tourist information about visiting the county, see www.visitlincolnshire.com
