Public donations key to West Midlands keeping the Staffordshire Hoard
An unprecedented £900,000 of public donations, one of the largest responses ever to a heritage appeal, has helped save the Staffordshire Hoard for the West Midlands.
As the most significant Anglo-Saxon find in the world, the treasure will attract history buffs and visitors from all over the world to the region, providing a major boost for tourism.
The fund reached the £3.3 million target needed to buy the largest ever haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure thanks to a final £1,285,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund this week.
The hoard, made up of almost 1,600 items dating from about 650AD, is joint owned by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Stoke-on-Trent Potteries Museum.
The private donors, a third of who were from the West Midlands, handed over sums ranging from a few pence to £100,000 to ensure that the largest ever haul of Anglo-Saxon gold can stay in the region.
The Art Fund, which organises fund raising for museums and galleries all over the country, has been astounded at the speed and level of response.
More than 100,000 people queued to see the hoard in Birmingham last autumn, while a further 54,000 saw a recent exhibition in Stoke.
“It was an unprecedented response to a fund raising campaign and just shows how the Staffordshire Hoard has captured the public imagination,” said Art Fund head of policy and research Sally Wrampling.
“A third of the donors were from the region, the vast majority of those from Birmingham. We have reached the targets three weeks ahead of the deadline and we have to thank the public for this.
“There was an anonymous donation of £100,000 from America.”
