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A “popular” museum taxidermy gallery in Leicester will permanently close next weekend ahead of plans to turn it into a café. Leicester City Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, said the Wild Space gallery at the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery in New Walk now looks “tired”.
The Wild Space gallery houses around 100 taxidermied animals, many of which were preserved more than 100 years ago. Leicester City Council said the gallery will close next Sunday (April 7).
In March last year, Leicester City Council said plans were being readied to create a new café in the space currently occupied by the Wild Space gallery. The authority said the new café would have both outdoor and indoor seating with a new entrance on New Walk that would mean the café could trade when the museum was closed.
It said a planning application for the works is due to be submitted this spring. Sir Peter Soulsby said there are also plans for a new gallery which uses “modern” display techniques and is “likely to focus on key issues such as extinction and climate change.”
Mayor Soulsby said: “The current Wild Space gallery has been a popular exhibit for more than 20 years, with children of all ages enjoying looking at everything from the big cats to the small rodents on display. But the gallery is now looking tired, and it’s time to start planning a new natural history gallery that uses modern display techniques and updated interpretation to look at the environmental challenges facing both animals and humans.
“These plans are still under development, but the new gallery is likely to focus on key issues such as extinction and climate change. The animals in our collection will now go into storage, ready to play a part in those future displays and continue to inspire interest in the natural world in a new generation of visitors.”
The council said all the animals in the collection will be taken away to be deep-cleaned, before being placed into storage, ready to form part of future displays.
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