THE volunteers who took over Malmesbury's ailing museum a year ago this week are celebrating a five-fold increase in visitors.

The Friends of Athelstan Museum are also tackling an ambitious plan of improvements to bring the attraction into the 21st Century.

Chairman of the group Roger Griffin is delighted with the way the museum had been brought back almost from the dead since its town hall home was bought for £1 by Malmesbury Town Council from North Wiltshire District Council.

He told the Standard: "I think we have made a very good start. We have had tremendous support from our volunteers and we have managed to keep it open daily apart from 10 days at Christmas.

"Five times the number of people are coming to it than last year and we have put on four major exhibitions."

During the year volunteers also unearthed the official insignia for the mayoress, which had been missing for two decades.

They also dug out a rare Roman coin that had languished in the archive for several years.

Fears that the museum might lose its home in the planned revamp of the town hall have been laid to rest and now FOAM is working on its own scheme to transform the way the collections are displayed.

Mr Griffin said: "The future, theoretically, is assured. The town council have agreed a 15-year lease, which is what wee need to get grants.

"We have not yet formally agreed the conditions, but I believe they are going to be reasonable and supportive.

"The hurdle that we have in front of us it to get grant money to go forward."

However he was optimistic it could be done.

"There are quite a lot of people out there who are prepared to support art and education and the museum comes into both those categories.

"We have a lot of ideas about what we want to do," he said. "We are going to do an awful lot of work and an awful lot of money has got to be found. That is not going to be an easy job.

"We are not just asking for money to put some shelves up for the ornaments."