NEXT month's Spring Bank Holiday will see a big celebration for work nearing completion on Dean Heritage Museum's massive refurbishment.

The work on the complex and exciting programme of building works at the Soudley complex started last autumn.

Since then an enormous amount of work has been carried out to transform the museum into a state of the art showcase for the history and heritage of the Dean.

The work is now at a critical stage.

The interior of this old flour warehouse has been opened up by knocking out some of the walls and ceilings and by opening up the passageways. This will create new exhibition spaces, help visitors to find their way and will make viewing the many new displays easier.

It will also open up the beautiful views of the mill ponds and surrounding woodlands.

Some of the work that has been carried out includes complete rewiring, new doors and windows, new plastering, a lift, new floors, a complete refurbishment of the cafe, including a balcony, new ground floor craft workshops, newly designed shop, specialist glass showcased designed especially for the artifacts and displays, many of which have never been seen before.

The builder is from the Forest of Dean and where possible the designers of the interior, the Janus Group from York, have commissioned local artists and craftspeople to use local stone, wood and ochres. The new front entrance is to be made from locally grown green oak .

Over the Spring Bank Holiday, May 24 and May 25, there will be a brass band, Freeminers beer, home cooked food in the cafe, organic local apple juice, a charcoal burn, a demonstration of mediaeval pottery making, an art exhibition "A Forester's View" by local watercolourist, Rex Foley, and woodcarver Tony Randall, a longbow demonstration by experts, Steve Bluett will be blacksmithing, David Yeates shows his skill stone cutting, Tom and Stewart will be pole- lathe turning and log cleaving, and Trevor Reid demonstrates basket weaving.

There will be a special discounted ticket to get in and everyone is most welcome to take this chance to look at the completed ground floor of the new-look museum.