TWO of the region's museums have been awarded a Government grant after being named among the best in Britain.

Beamish and Bowes museums will share a windfall of almost £750,000 which will be spent making them more accessible to visitors.

The award will be announced by arts minister Tessa Blackstone this morning.

The two County Durham attractions are to receive a sizeable chunk of the £5.2m announced this morning to be spent on the most important collections held at non-national museums and galleries around the country.

The cash, which will support projects running until the end of March 2004, comes under the Designated Museum Challenge Fund, created to recognise the finest museums and galleries in the country.

Beamish is to share £500,000 with Tyne and Wear Museums towards the cost of building an extension to its £1.1m regional resource centre, which stores objects for both institutions. The centre, which was opened earlier this year, houses 120,000 photographs, 64,000 books and 76,000 objects.

The grant will also pay for learning, training and outreach activities based at the centre.

Bowes has been allocated £222,000 from the fund which will finance a change of direction at the south Durham attraction.

The cash will be used to improve interpretation at the museum using guides, actors and artists to make the collections more accessible to tourists.

Already, competing attractions such as Beamish and Jorvik make extensive use of actors to bring the past to life in a more exciting way for visitors and the cash will also be used to help market the museum more effectively to ensure its long-term future.

Last year Bowes received £20,000 under the scheme. In 1999 the Designated Museums Challenge Fund provided £500,000 to improve documentation and provide internet access to the museum's treasures.

Tessa Blackstone said: "Our museums, and the designated collections in particular, are among the best in the world.

"We are right to be proud of them and right to do everything we can to make them as open and accessible as possible.

"These grants will benefit those museums who have put forward imaginative and innovative schemes to boost access."