Peace Museum to reopen at new location in August

The museum was previously based at Piece Hall Yard in Bradford city centre

Bradford's Peace Museum will reopen in early August at its new location in Salts Mill.

The museum opened in 1998 in Piece Hall Yard in Bradford city centre, although objects for its collection were being gathered from 1994 onwards.

It is the only museum of its kind in the UK and it closed at the start of the pandemic as the original site was no longer viable.

A National Lottery Heritage Grant of just over £245,000 and £150,000 from Bradford 2025 City of Culture helped fund the move to a Grade II listed building in Saltaire, near Shipley.

Museum director Joe Brook said: "We're opening in August, watch out for the official launch date because that's going to be announced soon, but you heard it here first.

"We're going to strip it [the new space] back, decorate it and clean it up.

"Then the new exhibition will be a really lovely contrast because it'll be all clean and sharp and will work really, really well."

Mr Brook, 50, was appointed in February having moved from National Museums Liverpool as head of creative studios.

He had previously worked at the National Media Museum and its predecessor the National Museum of Photography, Film and TV.

Joe Brooke said the new space is being prepared for August's opening

Museum curator Charlotte Houlahan said the museum's closure in 2020 had given them the opportunity to move to accessible premises.

She was responsible for packing the 16,000-strong collection of items and moving them to a new storage facility in the basement of Salts Mill.

"It took about a year to pack everything up safely and about another year to unpack everything, so it's been a lot of work," she said.

"But it's great to see the objects in their new home, safe and secure."

Curator Charlotte Houlahan and her team had to pack up and move the museum's 16,000 artefacts.

The museum explores the history of peace, peacemakers, social reform and peace movements.

It said the funding it had received enabled its move and would help it to develop a dedicated learning space.

The move, it added, would also create more opportunities for visitors, researchers, and community groups to explore the diverse range of stories told by its collections.

Historic peace pin badges are among the museum's collection