Partnership Galleries

When Norwich Castle's medieval Keep reopens in summer 2025, it will transport visitors to the heyday of Norman England. Following a multi-million-pound redevelopment, the Grade I-listed Keep will recreate the splendour of the original building, one of the most spectacular palaces in medieval Europe.  

As part of the project a new Gallery of Medieval Life, developed in partnership with the British Museum, will showcase over 1,000 exceptional objects from across the medieval period.   

Co-curated with 30 representatives from the South Asian diaspora in Manchester, the South Asia Gallery is the most ambitious Partnership Gallery collaboration to date and includes 45 British Museum objects. The display explores the history and culture of South Asia through personal and emotional perspectives and people-focused storytelling.

'I think this is the way forward for museums and how it should be. It's given voice to the South Asian community in a way no one else has.' 
– Anindita Ghosh, co-curator of the South Asia Gallery.

After eight years in development, the British Museum Partnership Gallery opened at Manchester Museum in 2023, winning the Permanent Exhibition of the Year award at the Museum and Heritage Awards in 2024.   

The Roman Frontier: stories beyond Hadrian's Wall, showcases Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery's significant Roman collections, complemented by objects loaned from the British Museum since 2014.  

The gallery tells the story of the empire's northernmost frontier, occupied by the Romans for 400 years, and looks at how Hadrian's Wall relates to modern borders.  

Loaned objects from the Museum's collections include a depiction of Venus in a relief from a tomb and a marble statue of the goddess Fortuna.  

Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery reopened in July 2006 after a £30 million Heritage Lottery-funded restoration and redisplay, attracting more than 1.3 million visitors in the first three months.  

Integrated with Glasgow's own collection of ancient Egyptian material, the Egyptian Treasures gallery features the long-term loan of 84 items from the British Museum.  

These include the upper half of a black granite statue of Queen Nefertari, a female mummy excavated in Thebes and a glazed baboon figure.  

This Partnership Gallery showcases what it was like to live in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

It features objects on loan from the British Museum, as well as those from the Royal Institution of Cornwall's collections.

Objects on loan since 2012 include a granodiorite statue of Sekhmet, the Lion Goddess, and bronze figurines of Hermes and Cerberus.

The Great North Museum's Ancient Egypt Gallery, which opened in 2009, is an exploration of life and death in ancient Egypt.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey exploring the everyday lives of ancient Egyptians, including their religious beliefs and how they were influenced by the Nile.

The exhibition is enhanced by objects on loan from the British Museum, including a limestone statue of Ramses II, a cast of the Rosetta stone and papyrus sections of the Book of the Dead.

Visitors can take a dramatic journey through the transition from Life to Death by passing through a tunnel that spans a virtual River Nile.

Roman York: Meet the People of the Roman Empire opened in 2010. The gallery tells the story of the cosmopolitan city of Eboracum (the Roman name for York), using loans from the British Museum to illustrate Yorkshire's links to the wider Roman Empire and beyond.  

Key loans from the British Museum include a portrait bust of Roman Emperor Caracalla, a bronze figure of Hercules and a gem that has been engraved with a portrait of a Libyan.  

As part of this partnership, Yorkshire Museum and the British Museum shared not only objects but also expertise, with collaboration around their coins and medals collections in particular.