THE Bowes museum is preparing an application to the national lottery, which it hopes will be the first move in attracting more than £5m to the Barnard Castle treasure house.

The Bowes will submit a first bid in June next year with the aim of being awarded up to £500,000 from the heritage lottery fund.

If successful, it is planned to create a new toy gallery and a "swan experience", featuring the famous silver swan automaton bought by founder John Bowes for £200 in 1872.

The swan, which appears to be swimming as it picks fish up from a stream, was featured in Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad after the novelist spotted it in the Paris exhibition of 1867.

It was decided to tackle the toy gallery and swan experience, following visitor surveys that were overwhelmingly positive for improvements in those areas.

"The decision whether to award the money will be made by the regional lottery committee," said the museum's marketing manager, Dr Anne Allen.

"Although we are basically at the preparation stage with the strategy documents and next June seems a long way off, we want to make sure we have done everything correctly to mount a successful bid.

"As part of the process we have got to have a business plan and education policy worked out as well as presenting a whole plan for the museum's long term future."

The Bowes is currently in receipt of £250,000 of funding from the county council, which is earmarked for electrical work. But the money, which will count as match funding, is being kept until the proposed new galleries are ready to be re-wired.

As part of the long-term potential, staff are also looking at the possibility of a new storage building, revamping the whole of the museum's first floor, and creating a John and Josephine Bowes experience.

This would be a permanent exhibition giving an introduction to the museum in the form of graphic panels.

Dr Allen stressed that the projects were very much at the preparation stage.

"We still have to do the basics such as a building survey to find out the overall state of the museum," she added.

"But the next few years in the museum's history should be exciting and forward looking times."

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