Treasure House - Beverley

The East Riding Treasure House is a multi-disciplinary centre for heritage and information services. It contains the East Riding Archives and Local Studies, Beverley Library, a Museum and Beverley Art Gallery. There is also a coffee lounge and gift shop, and you can get a magnificent view of Beverley and the Minster from the tower.

The building holds historical archive materials in repository stores at rear of the building which are  temperature and humidity controlled with major plant room areas. It sits on piled foundations and sa teel frame with brick/block cladding.

The project includes additional works to the library and infrastructure and the new building is physically linked to the existing library and art gallery to create one centre.
Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of £3,919,000 to the project, which is designed to bring archives, libraries, museums and galleries under one roof offering a ‘joined-up’ history and culture service for all East Riding residents. There is a new entrance for the whole facility and lifts to the upper floors that provide disabled access to the art gallery for the very first time. Included in the design are a permanent inter-active display on the history of the East Riding; a space for temporary exhibitions; an audio-visual room; education room; refreshment room and sales point. The Treasure House also forms an ICT heritage hub for archives, local studies and museums collections.

The Houlton team started working alongside the archaeologists and the then chairman of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Coun. Margaret Chapman, buried a time capsule to mark the start of building work some of the finds were visible in the ground alongside. The contents of the time capsule reflect life in the East Riding in 2004, including contributions from local schools (Snaith, Longcroft and Headlands Secondary Schools) in very different parts of the community, and include school timetables and course work describing how the students think the world will be in 50 years time (when the capsule will be resurrected) and their world at the present time. It is hoped that some of the young people involved will be present when the capsule is unearthed in 50 years time.