Thanks to a government grant from the Renaissance Programme, the famous Musical Stones of Skiddaw in Keswick Museum will now be able to be taken out on tour safely.

The grant for over £4200 which was awarded last week will pay for twelve specially-adapted wheeled travelling cases to be made so that the Victorian instrument can be taken out on tour and safely preserved while in transit.

The Musical Stones of Skiddaw are a fourteen foot long slate xylophone constructed by the Keswick stonemason Joseph Richardson between 1827 and 1840. Over the last two years the antique instrument has been taken out on tour once again as it was in the Victorian period. Museum manager Jamie Barnes has wanted to find a safe and secure method of transporting the unique instrument since 2005 and was delighted when he won this grant to buy the wheeled storage boxes. Three more concerts are planned this year and Jamie is looking forward to using the new boxes when they have been specially adapted in a few weeks time.

Keswick Museum and Art Gallery is open from Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 4pm. Admission is still free. A new fine art exhibition opens in the Art Gallery on Saturday (2nd) - Internal landscapes' by Linda Gallacher.

The Renaissance Programme which has funded this is a government programme to transform regional museums. The programme is directly administered by the strategic body for Museums: the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA).