BLACKBURN museum is planning the biggest spring clean in its 135 history to make way for new exhibits.

Storage rooms are currently jam-packed with unwanted stock and museum manager Sally Coleman and her staff are busy making room for new material.

She said: "This museum has been collecting for more than 100 years and it is about time we got rid of the things we don't need and replace them with exhibits more relevant to the history of Blackburn."

The unwanted stock consists of textile machinery, print collections, natural history and geology specimens and thousands of legal and council files. Documents such as the Fielden papers - a deposit made by the estate of the local landowners in 1972 - stored in 3,064 boxes will be moved to the Lancashire Records Office where they can properly catalogued.

Other material such as spinning machines are earmarked to be transferred to Helmshore Textile Museum and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, while the museum's natural science collections will move to museums in the North West with relevant specialist expertise.

Mrs Coleman added: "By reducing existing collections, we can continue to acquire relevant material of historical, cultural or artistic value to Blackburn for the benefit of local people."

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