Austin-Smith:Lord was commissioned to sensitively restore and convert the Grade II* listed Music Hall, in the centre of Shrewsbury, into a Museum for Shropshire County Council.

The Museum has been created within a unique collection of buildings including the 13th Century Vaughan’s Mansion, the 19th Century Music Hall and Assembly Rooms, a medieval shut, the town’s 18th century prison cells and 20th century nuclear bunker. Vaughan’s Mansion sits on Anglo Saxon foundations and is one of only a handful of medieval defensive

houses remaining in the UK.

We have stitched all of the buildings together into a coherent whole and enabled the museum to increase its use by a wide variety of community and special interest groups. More space has been provided to liberate more usable areas for temporary exhibitions, events, meetings and education within the dramatic existing buildings and to resolve the myriad different floor levels across the site.