Museums due to re-open next month

Sunday 21 June 2020

Details over when Guernsey's museums, including those at Castle Cornet, will re-open have been released.

Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery at Candie will open on Thursday 2 July alongside Café Victoria.

Castle Cornet and its museums will open on Saturday 18 July, which is the day after States’ schools break up for their summer holidays. The Castle’s café will remain closed, but the rest of the site will be open four days a week, Thursday to Sunday.

Education, Sport & Culture President Matt Fallaize said it was important to open Castle Cornet in time for the summer holiday in order to support the States' staycation campaign. 

“We are pleased to announce that Guernsey Museum will open in a couple of weeks and that Castle Cornet will open in time for the school summer holidays," he said. "Our staff are working hard to prepare the Museum and the Castle to welcome back visitors.

"There will be many fewer tourists of course, but we are sure lots of Guernsey and Bailiwick residents will want to visit. The Museum and the Castle will be enjoyed by schoolchildren on holiday from school, their families or islanders on staycations or anyone else who wants to take advantage of these landmark local attractions."

Pictured: Deputy Fallaize and his committee are hoping that schoolchildren will visit the museums during the summer break.

Fort Grey and the German Navy Signals HQ will remain closed due to the low number of tourists likely to visit the island until the end of the year.

“We would rather not be keeping Fort Grey and the German Navy Signals HQ closed for the rest of this year," said Deputy Fallaize. "But we could not justify the cost of opening them when the potential for income would be so small owing to the much lower number of visitors. Covid-19 will significantly reduce the income of the Museums’ Service this year. We felt it was prudent to mitigate some of these losses by focusing efforts on re-opening Castle Cornet and Guernsey Museum.”

The Committee is extending Discovery Passes which were purchased in the final quarter of 2019 so that they remain valid until December 2021.

Guernsey Museum closed its doors when lockdown started while the other sites did not open for the season at the end of March as planned. Staff are currently preparing for opening and installing the next exhibition – A Journey into the Hidden Natural World. 

Pictured top: Castle Cornet.