AFTER years of public wrangling, Amesbury could finally have a purpose-built modern museum, if new plans get the green light.

The current History Centre on Church Street is set to be replaced by a two storey building complete with a 60-seat auditorium and chairman Mick Cordingly hopes it can become a “centre of excellence” for the town.

It comes as visitor numbers at the centre hit a record high over the summer with tourists coming from as far as Venezuela, USA and China.

The building is being paid for through the Bloor Homes and the design is currently being drawn by architects.

It is hoped work will be completed in two years with the centre being temporarily relocated during the months when construction takes place.

It will be three times bigger than the current building, with 3,200sqft of exhibition space. The second floor 60 seat auditorium will host talks and could even show new movies in a similar way to Winterbourne’s Glebe Hall.

“We have extraordinary amounts of artefacts we can put into the new centre,” Mick said.

“At the moment if you put anything else in here it would just make it too cluttered.

“When we move into the new centre we will also have a reference library, we have books which go back to the 17th century and we even have the book on the original sale of the Amesbury Abbey estate.

“We have to work hard to get funding to kit out the inside and if we can get the community involved it would be great.”

More schools are now using the centre during the week and Mick says the children enjoy being able to handle historical artefacts.

“The kids love it because they can’t go up to the British Museum and pick-up an arrowhead,” he said. “It is touchy feely things that draws people in here and we can show them mesolithic flints and 9,000 year old cow bone.”

In the short-term redecoration work will be taking place during winter when a planned shutdown takes place from December 19.