V&A treasure trove set to open

The Great Bed of Ware was last used in 1931

By BBC News Online's Robert White

The Victoria and Albert Museum is set to open its doors to 15 extra rooms, which will house the British Galleries - its largest project mounted since World War II.

The project, which cost £31m, cover 3,000 square feet and contain objects spanning the reigns of Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.

It will be officially opened by Prince Charles on 20 November.

The galleries' rooms are laid out to tell the story of British design from 1500 to 1900.

The V&A: Admisson is free from this month

Highlights include the Henry VIII's writing desk, James II's wedding suit, the Three Graces, by Canova, and the nation's oldest and most famous bed - the Great Bed of Ware.

The bed, which dates from 1590, and is 11 feet long by 10 wide, started life at the famous White Hart inn.

There is a reference to this monumental piece of furniture in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and in Byron.

No original linen exists for the bed, but the V&A has made every effort to create an authentic reproduction.

Three soft mattresses, each containing a different stuffing, have been used.

Judging by the movements of Royal Shakespeare Company actors Zoë Waites and Ben Meyjes, the Tudors liked their bedding squashy, to say the least.

They were the first people to get in the bed since 1931, when the V&A acquired it.

The great mattresses quivered and threatened to swallow the intruders.

The Norfolk House Music Room was opened in 1756

The objects in the galleries span a breathtaking variety of styles.

Every major name in the history of British design is represented, including Grinling Gibbons, Robert Adam, William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Yet there is no sense that the curators have over-reached themselves.

Neither have they allowed themselves to become slaves to chronology.

Only about a third of the objects the galleries now contain were on display in similar, mixed-media spaces.

Canova's masterpiece is one of the most famous pieces in the galleries

The other two thirds were in areas of the museum devoted to specific materials and techniques.

With the British Galleries, the V&A has cannily reshaped its own treasure trove to make it tell a compelling and coherent narrative.

Christopher Wilk, chief curator of the new galleries, explained the thinking behind them.

"It gives a completely new view of British culture over four centuries and will enable people to see the history of art and design as they never have before," he said.

"For most visitors, the story they will see is that from the beginning of these galleries, in 1500, culturally, Britain was on the margins of European artistic affairs.

By the end of the galleries, in 1900, Britain was the workshop of the world.

Chief curator Christopher Wilk

"If you wanted to go where things were happening, you went to Florence or Antwerp.

"But by the end of the galleries, in 1900, Britain was the workshop of the world."

He added that the "transformation of British culture" during those centuries would be the story told by the galleries.

The only contemporary exhibit testifies to the eloquence with which the V&A has succeeded in telling that tale.

Suspended in what was once a solid floor is a specially commissioned artwork by Cornelia Parker.

The piece, entitled Breathless, is made up of flattened brass instruments that once belonged to colliery and British Legion bands.

Parker has created a ghostly fanfare in limbo that echoes around the galleries, connecting past and present.

It's a stylish flourish that could only have been pulled off by curators with real confidence and vision.