The project to redevelop Wrexham Museum into a major new national attraction has reached a significant milestone.
Wrexham Museum and Courtyard Cafe will close to the public after Saturday 4th November.
Archives will close a day earlier. Friday 3rd November will be the final day they are open to the public.
This so work can begin to prepare the building for redeveloping into the ‘Museum of Two Halves’ – a new football museum for Wales, alongside a fully refurbished Wrexham Museum.
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The new football museum will celebrate Welsh football, past and present, in all its diversity, from grassroots clubs to the national teams, as well as highlighting Wrexham’s historic achievements in the sport and celebrating the rich football heritage of the County Borough.
New galleries will be created to display the Wrexham Museum collections, which means an enhanced experience for visitors and a first-class, modern venue for discovering the fascinating and eventful story of our region of North East Wales.
The redevelopment work is due to be completed in 2026.
Although the museum building on Regent Street will be closed while the refurbishments are carried out, we are taking steps to ensure you’ll still be able to access many of our museum services at alternative temporary locations in the city centre.
We’ll be announcing further details on this over the coming weeks. See the Find out more section further down in this article for details on how to stay updated.
In the meantime, here’s what we can share with you so far about our plans…
Wrexham Museum/Football Museum Wales
Our museum team will be moving to a temporary base in the city centre whilst redevelopment work is being carried out.
As well as housing our staff, we also hope to be able to open this space to the public in future. Visitors will be able to come and discover more about the project and take part in workshops, family activities and more.
Archives
Wrexham Archives will be relocating to a brand new permanent home at Wrexham Library.
The opening of the new search room will be announced shortly along with opening times and how to access the records.
We envisage a short break as we move material across from County Buildings but once open all of the information available for local studies and family history will be available unchanged.
Our Archives team are very much looking forward to the move and working with our Library partners!
Courtyard Cafe
We’re very pleased to announce that our much-loved courtyard cafe will also have a new temporary home while the museum is closed – at Tŷ Pawb’s Food Court!
The cafe’s offer at Tŷ Pawb will include a huge range of delicious home-made light meals, quality coffees, freshly-made sandwiches, popular soups and irresistible cakes.
We be announcing the opening date very soon.
We be announcing the opening date very soon. Join our mailing list to get updates on this straight to your inbox – details below.
Find out more
You can keep up to date with all the latest project news by subscribing to the Wrexham Museum and/or Football Museum Wales mailing lists.
Football Museum Wales mailing list
You can also follow both ‘halves’ of the museum on social media:
Wrexham Museum
Football Museum Wales
Cllr Paul Roberts, Lead Member for Community Safety & Partnerships, added: “Following two years of planning, consultation and design work, we have now reached a significant stage in the creation of this exciting and ambitious new ‘Museum of Two Halves.’ Closing the museum building will allow us to focus our efforts on preparing the building for redevelopment work to commence in 2024.
“I’d like to thank the project team and funding partners for the incredible work they’ve carried out to help us reach this important milestone. I’d also like to thank the team for ensuring that people will still be have access to museum services – including the popular Courtyard Café – at temporary locations in the city centre whilst the redevelopment work to the building on Regent Street is being carried out.”
The Museum is being developed by Wrexham Council’s museum team in association with museum designers, Haley Sharpe Design and architects, Purcell. The project is being supported with funding from Wrexham Council and Welsh Government, with additional support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The Museum of Two Halves project has received £1.3m from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.”
