Prison for Sycamore Gap felling
PLUS: Middlesbrough hosts Turner Prize in 2026
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Friday 18 July 2025 | news from museums, galleries, heritage and art, including:
Midlands football team scores museum sponsors ⚽️
Kew Gardens’ glass house net-zero makeover 🌱
Man in court over Perth Museum hammer attack 🏴
Happy Friday.
We’re over halfway through 2025 now. Which, I’m sure you can agree, is unbelievable. It was March about five seconds ago.
But despite being terrifying, it’s a good time to look back and see what my museum highlights of the year have been so far.
Two exhibitions really stand out for me. The first I’ve mentioned here before: the exquisite The Edwardians: Age of Elegance at the King’s Gallery, at Buckingham Palace.
Through 300 objects from the Royal Collection, you experience “the opulence and glamour of the Edwardian age”. I spent three-and-a-half hours in there, shunning the blazing sunshine outside. A sign of how much I loved it.
The other is Ryan Gander’s new exhibition at the Museum Beelden aan Zee — AKA the sculpture museum by the seaside — in the Hague. It’s Gander’s first ever solo exhibition in the Netherlands, and it brings together over 20 of his bronze ballerinas alongside a rare loan of the work that inspired them: Edgar Degas’ 1922 sculpture Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans. It’s a show I thought so joyful that it deserved a big slot in this newsletter — so next week my Big Interview is with the museum’s director on how this logistically-challenging exhibitions was all put together. Keep your eyes peeled.
Other honourable mentions should go to Cartier at the V&A (enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and much more interesting than their Chanel show), the Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition at Centre Pompidou (if only for the novelty of it being the museum’s final exhibitions before closure, and seeing it presented in the très weird setting of the emptied-out library) and the Munch exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (because, you know, it’s Munch!).
The year thus far hasn’t actually thrown up any major duds, unless I’ve subconsciously blocked them out of my memory. But if I had to pick out a couple of disappointments I’d plump for Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern which, despite a sprawling nine rooms, manages to say nothing at all. And while trip to Towner Eastbourne for their Sussex Modernism exhibition was lovely, the show itself tried to say so much in its text labels that they were near-impossible to follow. Which I do think is key.
What are your highs and lows of the first half of 2025? Hit reply to this email to let me know.
Now let’s dive into this week’s news!
maxwell
— In partnership with HdK
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Top stories 🚨
Kew Gardens’ net-zero makeover
Kew Gardens will close its iconic Victorian Palm House for over four years to embark on a massive £60m project to make the structure the first net-zero heritage glasshouse in the world.
Planning permission was submitted this week, and some of the Palm House’s 1,300 plants have started to be removed. All will be eventually be taken away in an unprecedented logistical operation. One specimin — the world’s oldest potted plant — is 250 years old.
The hot and humid conditions inside have taken their toll on the building, which opened in 1848 and houses a tropical rainforest. “It’s dripping with condensation, and that cast and wrought iron is starting to corrode,” Reuben Briggs, head of capital projects at Kew said.
Closure will commence in 2027. A third of the cash needed has been raised. The project will “serve as a beacon of what sustainable heritage can achieve” according to Kew’s director Richard Deverell. (Read more)
Football team scores museum sponsors
A West Midlands football team will play the next season with one of the region’s most-loved museums across their shirts thanks to a “remarkable” new sponsorship arrangement.
The Black Country Living Museum will be emblazoned on players’ shirts at Wednesfield FC, who compete in the Midland Football League Division One and have a proud grassroots tradition. The tie-up was established after Jonathan Badyal — Deputy Chair of the museum — offered to be the 2025/26 kit sponsor, and then decided to gift it to the Black Country Living Museum in a move hailed as a “remarkable gesture.” Badyal played for the club until he was 18.
"Wednesfield FC and the Black Country Living Museum were two of the most important institutions to me growing up” Badyal said. “They are true cornerstones of our community. I have long felt there is huge untapped potential when it comes to collaborations between sporting and cultural organisations, and I’m confident that this partnership will lead to meaningful and lasting impact in our area." (Read more)
Prison for Sycamore Gap felling
The two men who cut down the 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland have been jailed for over four years years.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were sentenced for an act of criminal damage that caused the much-loved tree to crash down on to Hadrian’s wall in September 2023. It’s felling — in the middle of the night — made headlines around the world.
In sentencing, Mrs Justice Lambert said a full motive was not clear, but she was "confident a major factor was sheer bravado," adding the action of felling the tree and the outrage it caused gave the men "some sort of thrill".
In a statement read to the court, the tree’s owners the National Trust said: "This iconic tree can never be replaced." National Trust manager Andrew Poad said the reason for the "malicious" and "mindless" vandalism was "beyond comprehension" and the way it was felled to land across the Roman wall was "reckless in the extreme." (Read more)
🔗 MORE on the Sycamore Gap ⤵
‘I was wrongly accused of felling the Sycamore Gap tree’ | via BBC News
How a ‘single strand of intelligence’ brought down the Sycamore Gap tree fellers | via the Independent
The fate of the Sycamore Gap tree has shed light on a deeper concern with protecting trees | via BBC In Depth
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UK news 🇬🇧
Turner Prize stays north 🏆
Middlesbrough will host the 2026 Turner Prize. The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) will stage the annual exhibition organised by Tate, and will follow Bradford’s hosting of this year’s edition. Tate’s official policy is that it hosts it in London every other year. But after 2026, Tate Britain will have hosted it just once in eight years. Tate tell me the policy has not been abandoned but “it’s always been flexible.” I’ll say. (Read more)
Tower’s burial site unearthed 🏰
The first major excavation at the Tower of London in 40 years has uncovered what experts believe could be a Black Death burial site, hidden for centuries beneath the chapel where Anne Boleyn is buried. It’s thought the remains of 50 people have been found, dating from the 14th century. They’re likely ordinary people who lived and worked in the tower — people we know vanishingly little about. “Historic Royal Palaces have never done an excavation like this and we won’t do it again” curator Alfred Hawkins said. (Read more)
Tate Modern’s magic new commission ✨
This year’s UNIQLO Tate Play commission at Tate Modern has been unveiled. For 2025, British artist Monster Chetwynd has created an immersive new theatrical installation inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film The Magic Flute (which itself is based on Mozart’s opera.) It’s a “playful and humorous commission [that] offers a wild experience for all visitors including families” according to Tate Modern director Karin Hindsbo. (Read more)
Man in court over museum hammer attack 🏴
A 35-year-old Australian man has appeared in court accused of using a hammer to smash the glass case housing the Stone of Destiny at Perth Museum in Scotland. He was charged with malicious mischief and made no plea. Remanded in custody, he will return to court next week. The stone was undamaged, but it remains closed to the public, a week since the incident. (Read more)
In more positive Perth news… 🎨
Over 300 rarely-seen artworks and personal belongings of celebrated Victorian artist John Everett Millais and his Perth-born wife, Effie Gray, have gone on long-term loan to Perth Art Gallery. Their great-grandson Sir Geoffroy Millais is sharing this private collection of items, which have not been seen publicly in 30 years, and have never traveled to Scotland before. (Read more)
Global news 🌎
Haiti 🇭🇹
Local police and curators were met with gunfire as they tried to remove 6,000 artworks from Port-au-Prince’s Centre d’Art museum. The two-day operation was to save the works from the armed Haitian gangs who now terrorise the city. Remarkably, despite the gunfire from gang members, the evacuation was successful. “It was a huge risk,” a police official said, because the gangs are deeply entrenched in the area. But “we saved a part of our national identity” they added. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸
The 2025 Getty Prize — the J. Paul Getty Trust’s highest honour — has been awarded to Ann Philbin, former director and current director emeritus of the Hammer Museum in LA. Winners are picked for their work expanding appreciation of arts and culture. They also get to nominate a charity to receive a $500,000 reward. Philbin chose public radio network NPR, who President Trump has this week successfully stripped of all its federal funding. (Read more)
Mexico 🇲🇽
Museo Dolores Olmedo — the home to the most significant collection of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera works — has announced it’ll reopen in 2026, six years after closing due to the pandemic. Yet controversy swirls around the museum and its future, with suggestions the collection will be split up, a move that would go against its founder’s wishes. Over 90 cultural leaders have written to Mexico’s cultural ministry to state their “concern over the closure and fragmentation of the museum’s holdings.” (Read more)
News in brief 🗞️
Ilori’s Milton Keynes makeover
Artist and designer Yinka Ilori’s latest makeover of the public realm will be outside Milton Keynes railway station. Ilori will bring Station Square to life with his textile-inspired patterns in the £100,000 commission. It opens in October. (More)
George Lucas offers first look at museum
Comic-Con doesn’t usually get a mention in this newsletter. But this month’s San Diego convention will see filmmaker George Lucas offer attendees the first “sneak peek” of his $1bn LA museum, opening in 2026. (More)
Ulster Museum’s transformational textile acquisition
One of the most significant private collections of early needlework is now in public ownership after being acquired by National Museums NI. The 250 artworks — English textiles from the 16-19th centuries — will be housed at the Ulster Museum. (More)
Caerphilly Castle reopens after revamp
Britain’s second biggest castle is finally reopening after an £8m revamp. Caerphilly Castle has been closed for two years, but will reopen with new interactive exhibits and more accessible spaces. (More)
Let's all go down the Pompidou (have a banana)
Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian — yes the $6.2 million banana-taped-to-a-wall artwork — has been eaten by a visitor yet again. This time while on display at the Pompidou-Metz. It was "reinstalled within minutes" say bosses. (More)
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👀 Last week’s most clicked news story
— The BBC’s Civilisations series returns with unprecedented access to the British Museum’s collection
📊 Last week’s poll results | Are you excited that the Bayeux Tapestry is coming back to Britain?
— YES! 100% 66%
— Somewhat. Maybe more by next year 25%
— Nah. It's just a bit of knitting 9%
📊 This week’s poll