After a turbulent few years during which it narrowly escaped closure, the Wandsworth Museum is about to open its doors once again.

Staff are in the final stages of rehousing exhibition pieces, including Wandsworth Council’s collection of 10,000 artefacts, following a prolonged move from Garratt Lane to new West Hill premises.

Three years ago, fans of the museum were furiously battling against a move by the council to close the historical resource in a bid to save £230,000-a-year in running costs.

Their campaign, backed by the Wandsworth Guardian, led to the Balham-based Hintze Family Charitable Foundation offering in the region of £2m to secure the museum’s future by enabling it to become an independent trust.

After years without a home, and a failed move to the Ram brewery site under Minerva’s now-scrapped development project, the Wandsworth Museum is to open to the public on September 3.

Its director, Andrew Leitch, said: “I think in the end as they say things worked out.

“What we’ve been trying to do is take all the good stuff from the old museum and bring that to the public eye and bring it back to life.”

He added: “The previous museum was a wonderful museum but was constrained in its spaces and how it was laid out.”

Dr Leitch, who was previously in charge of planning for three national museums including the Science Museum, hopes the new Wandsworth site can be a model for other smaller museums to learn from and “revitalise themselves”.

Permanent and temporary exhibition spaces run across three buildings on the 2,000 square metre site, which is the first museum in the world to be lit by LED lights, which use just 10 per cent of the normal power.

The first exhibition tells the story of Wandsworth over the past 2,500 years. Dr Leitch said it will reveal facts about Roman settlements in Putney and Battersea and connections between the borough and Voltaire and HG Wells.

He said: “You start pulling out these home truths and suddenly you have got a wonderful, terrifically contemporary story.”

The Wandsworth Museum is open every day of the week except Monday, from 10am to 5pm. Adult pay £8 but ticking a Gift Aid donation box upon entry means repeat visits will be free. Concessions are also offered.

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