THE Folly in Settle has received a grant of £80,000 to help it recover and re-open following the coronavirus pandemic.

The home of the Museum of North Craven Life is the latest Craven organisation to receive a grant in the recent round of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund.

It joins the Embsay and Bolton Abbey steam railway which has received £169,400, also to help towards its recovery.

Managers of The Folly, which recently unveiled its newly restored facade following months of restoration work, say the £80,000 will cover overheads and allow for more essential maintenance work on the Grade I listed former town house.

It will also cover the costs of a creation of a new exhibition about the history of The Folly itself, to be installed before the museum is due to reopen in May.

The grant will in addition cover some staff salaries, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for staff and volunteers, and restore some of the managing trust’s lost revenue from when the museum has been closed. It will also mean that the museum will be able to undertake some much-needed market research.

Heather Lane, chairman of the North Craven Building Preservation Trust (NCBPT) Trustees, said:“We are delighted to have been awarded this additional grant from the Culture Recovery Fund.

“We have spent almost all of our reserves supporting our staff and buildings during months of closure. This award relieves many of our worries about reopening and puts us on a much more secure footing, allowing us to plan for the future.

“We are looking forward to welcoming visitors back soon and we hope that they will be keen to see what we have achieved with Arts Council support inside The Folly, especially as the outside looks so spectacular after its restoration.”

Caitlin Greenwood, the NCBPT’s Heritage Development Officer, added: “It’s such brilliant news that we’ll be able to develop an exhibition about The Folly itself. For years, our visitors have been asking for more information about the incredible building that houses our museum and now we’ll be able to provide it, and tell people all we’ve discovered during our building works.”

More than £800 million in grants and loans has already been awarded to support almost 3,800 cinemas, performance venues, museums, heritage sites and other cultural organisations dealing with the immediate challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

The second round of awards will help organisations to look ahead to the spring and summer and plan for reopening and recovery.

The Government’s Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, said:“Our record breaking Culture Recovery Fund has already helped thousands of culture and heritage organisations across the country survive the biggest crisis they’ve ever faced.

Now we’re staying by their side as they prepare to welcome the public back through their doors - helping our cultural gems plan for reopening and thrive in the better times ahead.”

In September last year, the trust received an emergency lottery grant of £204,000 to repair the roof of The Folly. The building was at risk of closure after being faced with enormous repair bills when storms earlier in the year badly damaged the roof of the 350 year old building.

Work has also included the repair of the front windows, and the re-pointing of the facade with a hot lime mortar mix, which has now been revealed after months of being hidden behind scaffolding.

Specialist contractors analysed some of the surviving mortar from when The Folly was built, using ingredients including wood ash and goat or horse hair to carry out the work.

The result is a slightly different colour, but more in keeping with how the building would originally have looked when it was first built.