£1million grant from Heritage Lottery Fund confirmed for Coffin Works and Birmingham Conservation Trust

Photo: Tin Box Theatre Company taken by Birmingham Conservation Trust

Fantastic news! Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £999,400 has been confirmed for Birmingham Conservation Trust to restore the Newman Brothers Coffin Works factory in the Jewellery Quarter.

This is a massive step forward for our project and we have exciting plans to develop a programme of tours, cultural events, educational workshops and other activities both within the factory and out in the community, targeted at different ages and different communities. We plan to open a formal visitor attraction in the longer term.

The grant is fantastic news but we still need your help. We still have to raise funds to match the HLF grant. We’re aiming to raise £30,000 from the public – part of the total remaining target of £455,000 in donations and grants.

How you can help

We really need you to donate! You can do this by donating online at JustGiving.

If you shop online, first click on the Amazon or Buyat logos shown at the top of our website. The Trust will receive between 5% and 10% of the value of your purchases without it costing you anything.

How the Heritage Lottery Fund grant will be used

We can carry out urgent conservation and repairs to the Coffin Works factory, a Grade II listed building, and its contents. We’ll also use the grant to develop:

• Eight units offering fascinating and affordable office or studio space for 35 people.
• A new home for Birmingham Conservation Trust.
• A conservation studio where a new a curator will be conserving the collection and training volunteers in conservation.
• A learning and outreach officer who will be taking parts of the collection out into the city’s schools, residential homes and community groups to share stories of industry and death.
• A volunteer coordinator who will create new opportunities for volunteers to organise events, do tours and share their knowledge and experience.

The Coffin Works will become a place for people to come together to understand the past and experiment. They can learn conservation, find news ways of connecting to our history or talk about death.

Many people have visited the factory over the years. They’re fascinated by the industrial history and what the place tells us about death.

The factory will be a place where people from different backgrounds are comfortable to be who they are – and express themselves in ways that suit them.

We’ve already started doing exciting things in the building. We expect a quirky, curious place where you can be creative in your own right and explore this extraordinary piece of industrial and cultural heritage.

Stop The Clocks by Tin Box Theatre Company performed at Coffin Works, June 2011