Glenside Hospital Museum

Glenside Hospital Museum in Bristol has secured funding from Archives Revealed – the UK’s only dedicated programme for cataloguing and unlocking archive collections – to enhance access to nationally significant archives. This grant will shed new light on the history of mental health and learning disability care. The museum holds a unique collection of around 3,000 items dating from the late 1800s to the 1990s, including rare photographs, over 200 oral histories, books, letters, administrative records, and research papers. The newly awarded grant will fund a scoping project to provide a clear plan to modernise systems, strengthen staff and volunteer skills, and develop sustainable approaches to managing and sharing the collection, while also laying the groundwork for future funding. By improving access and care, the project will enable the museum to expand its research, exhibitions, and public programming, supporting academics, students, family historians, and wider audiences to explore connections between medical history, social change, and lived experience.