The French Hospital has now received a confirmed grant of £1.2 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the development, in Rochester, of the first national Huguenot Heritage Centre. The Centre will tell the story of the arrival of Huguenot refugees in Britain and will explain their key contributions to the formation of these islands’ destiny. It will open in summer 2015 above the Visitor Information Centre on Rochester’s High Street.
Through its displays and activities, the Huguenot Heritage Centre will bring to life the Huguenot story; a story of persecution, of flight from their homeland, and of settlement, integration, and eventual assimilation in England and Ireland. Visitors will learn of the skills that the Huguenots brought with them, and be able to understand the impact of those skills on the development of modern Britain. They will also be able to explore their own possible Huguenot links. The contemporary resonance of the Huguenots’ story will be illustrated, in various areas of the display, by examples of recent refugees’ experiences. The project will celebrate the Huguenot heritage through an exciting schools programme and bespoke community projects; programmes which will explore the rich cultural legacy of the immigrants by teaching Huguenot crafts, including silk weaving and the art of the silversmith.
The inspiration for the Heritage Centre, the first museum in Britain to be dedicated to the history of the Huguenots, came from the Directors of the French Hospital, founded in London in 1718 as a charity offering sanctuary to poor sick Huguenots. The Hospital owns a highly regarded collection of paintings, prints, drawings, furniture, silverware, clocks, books, archival records, and other items illustrating the material culture of the Huguenots, and this collection will be used in the Centre to help to tell the Huguenot story.
