It was extensively renovated following a large National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and reopened on Gloucester Day, 3 September 2011.
[3] Gloucester Life is a smaller museum in Westgate Street, dealing with the social history of Gloucestershire.
The museum opened on 12 March 1860 as a private venture in three rooms at The Black Swan, provided rent-free by the poet Sydney Dobell.
[10][12] In 1977, the collection acquired a landscape of Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill by William Turner of Oxford with help from The Art Fund.
[13] Gloucester Regent magazine March 1987 p2-6 discusses the controversial painting of dog excrement on a silver platter.