National Heritage Memorial Fund
The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) is a non-departmental public body set up under the National Heritage Act 1980 in memory of people who gave their lives for the United Kingdom.
Its purpose is to act as a fund of last resort to provide financial assistance towards the acquisition, preservation and maintenance of land, buildings, and works of art and other objects which, in the opinion of the trustees, are of outstanding importance to the national heritage.
It currently receives £10million annual grant-in-aid from the Government and will do so until March 2011.
A diverse list of over 1,200 heritage items which have been safeguarded by the National Heritage Memorial Fund to the tune of nearly £300 million, including:
- The Mappa Mundi
- The Mary Rose
- Flying Scotsman
- The last surviving World War II destroyer, HMS Cavalier,
- Orford Ness nature reserve in Suffolk
- Beamish Exhibition Colliery
- Sir Walter Scott manuscripts
- Antonio Canova's "The Three Graces"
- Picasso's "Weeping Woman"
- The Nativity, a miniature by Jean Bourdichon
- Thrust2 world land speed record car
- The Amarna Princess, an ancient Egyptian statuette, later proved to be a forgery by Shaun Greenhalgh
- Canterbury Astrolabe Quadrant.
- The personal archive of Siegfried Sassoon, WWI soldier, author and poet
- Skokholm Island, site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Pembrokeshire
The NHMF is funded by grant in aid from the Government through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
In 1993 NHMF was given the responsibility for distributing the share of funding from the National Lottery for the heritage good cause. It does this through the Heritage Lottery Fund.
