this museum director is going to great lengths to save his museum

the Director of London’s Garden Museum will swim 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to keep his museum afloat

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one London museum chief is going the extra mile to keep his institution afloat during the coronavirus crisis. in fact he’s going an extra 50 miles.

the Director of London’s Garden Museum Christopher Woodward is undertaking a sponsored swim to raise money to make up for month’s of lost income due to the Covid-19 closure. he’ll swim 50 miles from the coast of Cornwall in south-west England, to the Isles of Scilly, and hopes to raise at least £100,000.

the route was inspired by a sailboat journey made by the British artist and gardener Cedric Morris in 1950. Mr Woodward will make his attempt in September, and says that this exact route has never been swum before.

Christopher Woodward, the director of the Garden Museum, swimming in the Arctic Circle in 2017

like all independent museums, the Garden Museum’s is in immediate financial peril as it generates most of its revenue. 70% of the Museum’s income is from visitors, events, café and venue hire, and they say that being shut for the past three months will have lost them £270,000 in income. even when closed, as now, it costs £17,000 a month in fixed costs of insurance, environmental systems, and maintenance to keep the historic building and its collection safe and secure. Mr Woodward said: “The swim is in order to get us back to what we do: learning, future exhibitions, research, research, and sharing our beautiful garden.”

currently the Museum hopes to open its doors again on 4 July, but it’s dependent on UK Government guidelines. if it goes ahead as planned, that same day will see the opening of the exhibition Derek Jarman: My garden’s boundaries are the horizon. it will tell the story of film director Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage, Dungeness, and is the first exhibition to focus on Jarman’s love of gardening.

Mr Woodward said:

“We’re opening our Derek Jarman exhibition because it’s such a precious story and it would be heart-breaking not to share it. But numbers will have to be tiny as we’ve built a replica of the tiny rooms at the Cottage itself.

Derek Jarman's cottage in Dungeness. Photo: Howard Sooley

Woodward’s swim is estimated to take between two and four days. it’s not his first sponsored swim for the Museum, as he’s previouly tackled a 30km swim in the Arctic Circle, 110 miles of the River Thames, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Dardanelles strait.

you can donate to Mr Woodward’s sponsored swim for the Garden Museum here

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