CHANGES to Harlow Museum, housed within listed buildings of the former Mark Hall Manor, have been approved. A number of changes have been approved to the Muskham Road site – including the demolition of “unsympathetic” buildings dating from the 1980s and the buildings of a new cafe and visitors entrance reports the Local Democracy Reporter.

The council has determined that the benefits of the changes outweigh harm to the heritage of the buildings. An officer has said it will secure the financial viability of the museum with an increase in trade and custom. The museum is housed within a Grade II listed building, a late 18-century range of outbuildings formerly attached to the stable block of Mark Hall.

The site also contains a late eighteenth-century Grade II listed garden wall, and part of a Grade II listed 17th-century outbuilding formerly used as scout hut. The museum site is also located within the Mark Hall North Conservation Area.

The existing 1980s glazed lean-to structures in the courtyard are now set to be removed and replaced by two new galleries flanking the courtyard to provide exhibition space. These would be linked by a fully glazed link which would provide views through to the gables of the listed building.

The internal courtyard is set to be landscaped and the forecourt to the front resurfaced. An extension of existing storage space is set to be added on the north side. Construction has been approved for a single-storey building with chamfered edges and new signage to create a visitors’ entrance/ reception to the museum and exhibition spaces.

This would be a flat roofed metal clad portal frame structure, sited against the southern wall of the main building to provide an entrance into the museum from the walled garden. The addition would sit beneath the eaves of the building. A glazed link would attach the new building to the existing to ensure minimal fabric interference and visual separation between the two.

A new cafe extension is proposed to the former scout hut outside the east side of the garden wall. This would be a single storey building with twin hipped and pitched roofs. Walls and roofs would be timber.

The building would be visually separated from the existing by a lightweight glazed link. A 146 square metre café is be planned to create a versatile space capable of accommodating various events and community functions, independent of the main museum.

Landscaping around the new building would include a path to a new gate opening giving access to the walled garden and from there to the new entrance addition described above. This would provide a more direct route from the car park. The existing scout hut is set to be refurbished and re-purposed as a group learning space.

Chairman of Harlow planning committee Councillor Michael Garnett said: “We have very old listed buildings and we treasure them, but they don’t last forever. So we do need to make use out of them. What better place to have museum than in an old building.”