Top 10 museum renovations and reopenings in England for 2021

From Wordsworth to Thackray, Spitfires to railways … see old treasures in bright new spaces this summer

The Derby Silk Mill is built on the 300-year-old foundations of Lombe’s Mill, the world’s first fully mechanised factory. Now, an £18m project has turned the mill into the Museum of Making, celebrating three centuries of industry in the city. The museum houses 30,000 exhibits, including a seven-tonne Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine suspended from the ceiling of the new Civic Hall; a Midland Model Railway in the Railway Gallery; and a tiny engine run using a human hair. Visitors enter through the iron Bakewell Gates, which have stood outside the museum since 1725, while new additions include a viewing gallery at the top of the tower, a restaurant, the River Kitchen, overlooking the River Derwent, and a shop selling work by Derbyshire designers.
• derbymuseums.org