MUSEUM staff are celebrating a £14,000 lottery windfall that will make Thomas Hardy’s works accessible to everyone.

Community project ‘Hardy’s Wessex Sprung to Life’ will be based at Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.

It will cater for devotees of the Dorset author and newcomers to his works alike.

School students and adults with learning disabilities are among those who will benefit from the Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

A section of the High West Street museum will be transformed into a ‘Hardy hub’ that will focus on the story of local amateur dramatic society the Hardy Players.

The grant will allow visitors to have access to the Hardy Manuscripts, which were recently acquired by the museum.

Community groups clubbed together to raise funds to buy the manuscripts for locals to enjoy.

The collection includes the original Hardy Players’ working papers and records, annotated play scripts, actors’ parts, programmes, posters and miniature mock-up scenery.

Museum director Jon Murden said: “This is a great opportunity for us.

“We will be redesigning our Writers’ Gallery to incorporate the new collection and are very excited about opening up Hardy’s work to a range of new audiences.”

An exhibition of the Hardy Players’ collection will run from the middle of October until the end of this year.

Hardy’s masterpieces will also be brought to life through a series of public performances.

Adults with learning disabilities will take part in a range of activities led by artists, actors, learning experts, storytellers and musicians.

The Museum Makers, a group from Dorchester care home Douglas Jackman House, will collaborate with the New Hardy Players to develop their own public performance based on the new collection.

School students will interact with professionals from the Bath Philharmonia orchestra to deliver their own musical adaptations of Hardy’s work for public performance.

Youngsters who are studying Hardy for drama and English literature will be able to participate in sessions on the author at the museum, relating his novels, plays and poems to dramatic interpretations of his work.

Nerys Watts, head of region for the lottery fund in the South West, said: “We are delighted to support this project, which will celebrate an important part of the literary and artistic heritage of Dorset.

“Many of the original Hardy players were members of long-established families from the Dorchester area and the museum will continue this tradition by involving diverse local groups.”