STAFFORDSHIRE HOARD STORY BROUGHT TO LIFE

Real Studios has been appointed to design a new permanent gallery to house the Staffordshire Hoard ​- 3,500 items, the largest ever find of Anglo Saxon gold - as part of a major HLF bid. The hoard, estimated to be worth just over £3m, came to light in 2009 thanks to metal detector Terry Herbert, and was purchased through a fundraising campaign led by the Art Fund for the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Staffordshire's Potteries Museum. The gallery will tell the unfolding story of the find via the people involved in its discovery and conservation as well as the art historians and archaeologists trying to piece together its provenance and why so many fragments were in one place at one time. The Staffordshire Hoard will transform people's understanding of Anglo-Saxon culture and is expected to become a key part of a 'Mercian Trail' of important Anglo Saxon sites and discoveries across the region.

Image courtesy of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery