£4m boost for museums in England

Just one of the 31 museums and galleries to benefit

Thirty one museums and galleries in England are to benefit from grants totalling £4m to improve displays.

Recipients include Ipswich Museum's Egyptian coffins, Norwich Castle's crime displays and the Roman Baths Museum in Bath.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery gained the largest award of £300,000.

The money, aimed at enhancing visitors' experiences, has come from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Wolfson Foundation.

Tales of murder

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge said: "I hope the awards will help people all over Britain, particularly those with a disability, have improved access to the wonders of the old, new, beautiful and intriguing objects in England's museums and galleries."

This is the seventh year of the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums & Galleries Improvement Fund, which has awarded a total of £24m to institutions around Britain.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will spend its £300,000 grant on a new gallery telling the story of the city from medieval times to the present.

Museum head Rita McLean said: ¿I would like to thank the DCMS and the Wolfson Foundation for recognising our need for a gallery that will be of long-term benefit to local, regional and international visitors."

Egyptian coffin

Norwich Castle gains £70,000 for new displays focusing on its 500 years as a county jail - concentrating on the murderers hanged there.

Manchester Museum gets £97,000 for a new gallery on extinct animals and climate change.

The Egyptian collection at Ipswich Museum gains £50,000 to allow the Coffin of Lady Tahathor from Thebes to be displayed permanently.

The Imperial War Museum in London gets £190,000 for an interactive front of house public search facility and two reading rooms.

Other awards include an internet gallery at the National Media Museum in Bradford to record and interpret how the internet has changed people's lives.