The Rutland 'sea dragon' could be housed at the counties museum
Rutland County Council has applied for a National Lottery grant to help remodel and extend the museum
Britain’s largest ichthyosaur could be displayed in Rutland's museum.
The National Lottery has told Rutland County Council it can apply for a grant to help fund a multi-million pound cultural and civic centre.
The Liberal Democrat-run authority wants to remodel and extend the county museum in Catmos Street to include an exhibition space to display the prehistoric ichthyosaur discovered at Rutland Water in 2021.
This creature found it's way to us and it's part of our heritage
Rutland County Council Leader, Gale Waller, said:
"I'm really excited about it. I love the thought that we are not just in the here and now; we have come from somewhere."
"This creature found its way to us, and it's part of our heritage."
"It would be wonderful to show everybody a part of our heritage going back that far."
"The artefact itself will be an enormous benefit to both our history locally and understanding it, but also to our tourist industry."
"The ichthyosaur is of national significance because it's the largest complete skeleton that's been discovered anywhere in Europe."
"Without the funding, we won't be able to do the work necessary to display the artefact."
"We would need to do a lot of work on the museum to make it suitable to hold it whilst at the same time not just packing everything else away because we want to have a full museum offer."
Without the funding we won't be able to do the work necessary to display the artefact
The project is estimated to cost £7.6m, funded in part from capital receipts from the sale of the council’s existing offices at Catmose House. But there is a significant shortfall, for which a £4.6m lottery grant would be needed.
The authority had secured money from the former Conservative government’s levelling up fund to pay for the conservation and digitisation of the sea dragon fossil and a Roman mosaic that was also discovered in Rutland.
Both exhibits are of national importance.
Rutland County Council will now need to take ownership of the sea dragon fossil from Anglian Water, so it can be adopted into its museum collection.
Along with agreeing to take ownership of the ichthyosaur, the cabinet agreed to spend ÂŁ170,000 on the technical design work for the scheme and move forward with the lottery bid.