Tapestry museum to shut over high running costs

The Quaker Tapestry Museum in Kendal said its income could not keep up with "regular leaps in running costs"

A tapestry museum has said it is closing because it costs too much to run.

The Quaker Tapestry Museum in Kendal said its income could not keep up with "regular leaps in running costs" so it would shut its doors on 13 December.

The museum displays about 40 embroidered panels which form part of a 77-panel tapestry exploring the Quaker influence on the world, among many other artifacts.

The closure comes after the site won the 2025 small visitor attraction prize at the Cumbria Tourism Awards in July.

The museum launched a fundraiser in September, when it said it "needed support" but on Tuesday it said the "income received from paying visitors and other sources has failed to keep pace with regular leaps in running costs".

The museums said it would "sadly...say goodbye both to our staff and to our visitors" in December.

Some 4,000 people from 15 countries were involved in the tapestry project which was started in a Sunday school in Taunton in the early 1980s.

The museum said it was "working very hard to find a financially sustainable future for the Quaker Tapestry".

Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, do not share a fixed set of beliefs but they do try to uphold a set of values, which they call testimonies, around themes such as truth and equality.