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Registered charity · Barnard Castle

The Bowes Museum

The Bowes Museum is a registered charity (number 1079639) based in Barnard Castle, governed by 14 trustees. Latest income £4.2m (2026). Source: Charity Commission register, updated 18th October 2026.

  • 14 trustees
  • Income £4.2m (2026)
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Official record Charity Commission · updated 18th October 2026 · Sources · Free, no card or password

Network

The large node is The Bowes Museum. Red nodes are organisations, white nodes are people. Dashed links are historical or inferred. Click any node to explore.

Who leads it

Current trustees as listed by the Charity Commission, which does not publish previous trustees.

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People on this board also govern

Similar charities are matched by type of organisation or purpose and listed by latest income; shared trustees are formal board links. Neither is proof the organisations work together.

About

What it does
General Charitable Purposes, Education/training, Arts/culture/heritage/science, Environment/conservation/heritage
Where
Durham
Website
www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk (opens in a new tab)
Linked company
The Bowes Museum
Registered
2000

Income and spending

  • YearIncomeSpending
  • 2026£4.2m£4.1m
  • 2025£3.9m£3.5m
  • 2024£4.3m£3.3m
Earlier years
  • 2023£2.2m£2.5m
  • 2022£3.0m£2.7m

Income trend, 2022 to 2026.

Income source mix, 2026: Government grants 16%. From the charity's annual return.

Charitable objects

TO ADVANCE THE PUBLIC'S EDUCATION AND UNDERSTANDING OF ART, CRAFT, DESIGN AND HISTORY, IN PARTICULAR BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY BY ACQUIRING, OPERATING AND MAINTAINING THE BOWES MUSEUM, ITS COLLECTIONS AND ASSOCIATED GROUNDS AT BARNARD CASTLE, COUNTY DURHAM

Grants received

37 grants · £14,396,886 total

360Giving data, published by funders. Coverage only includes funders who publish their grants to 360Giving, so these figures are a floor, not a complete picture.

Top funders

  • The National Lottery Heritage Fund · £10,755,195 (16 grants)
  • Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport · £1,743,823 (5 grants)
  • Northern Rock Foundation · £845,000 (4 grants)
  • Department for Culture, Media & Sport · £629,472 (2 grants)
  • John Ellerman Foundation · £178,896 (2 grants)

Most recent

Board analysis

Board DNA

How this board is put together, from Charity Commission trustee records and Companies House - deterministic, no AI.iBoard compositionCounted from the dated Charity Commission trustee register: the current board only, past trustees excluded.

14 trustees on the board

3.2y median 5y
average tenure
7y
longest tenure

Trustees past 6 years

7.7y
average years in governance

First-time vs portfolio trustees

First-time (11)

Portfolio (3)

12
company-linked trustees

Sector coverage iSector coverageThe charitable fields this board's trustees govern in elsewhere, by Charity Commission classification. Excludes this charity.

Arts/culture/heritage/science 14Education/training 14General Charitable Purposes 12Environment/conservation/heritage 2

Commercial experience iCommercial experienceThe industries this board's members are company directors in, by Companies House SIC code. Excludes this organisation's own company.

Arts and leisure 15Retail and trade 5Education 4

Succession forecast iSuccession forecastThe number of board seats likely to open in the next twelve months - summed across the board from each dated trustee’s tenure - and the profile worth recruiting next. From the filed record, deterministic.

🔒 Succession forecast is a Pro feature - the board seats likely to open in the next year and the ideal next trustee. Explore Pro →

Health of the organisation facts side by side - the conclusion is yours

Income v spending, filed accountsiIncome v spendingTotal gross income and expenditure from filed annual returns, Charity Commission, last 5 years.
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
incomespending£3.9m latest income · income exceeded spending in 2024 and 2025
ReservesiReserves12 x free reserves / annual expenditure, from the Part B annual return. The sector median is computed across all Part B filers in the same income band.

1.0 months of spending held in free reserves · median for charities its size: 3.9 months · was 2.4 in 2021

82 from 86 in 2021
EmployeesiEmployeesHeadcount as filed in Part B annual returns, per financial year. Shown exactly as filed; year-on-year figures may be filed on different bases, so a comparison is only shown when the filings are plausibly comparable.

Sources

Official record from the Charity Commission register for England and Wales. Governance Register calculates the connections.

Record details
Registered charity number
1079639
Status
Registered
Governing document
MEMORANDUM AND ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED 18 NOVEMBER 1999 AS AMENDED BY SPECIAL RESOLUTIONS DATED 20 DECEMBER 1999, 23 DECEMBER 1999 AND 25 JANUARY 2006. CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION ON CHANGE OF NAME DATED 13 JANUARY 1999.
Companies House
Company number 03879872 · Active
Contact on the register
01833 690606 · info@thebowesmuseum.org.uk
Edition
Register edition compiled 18th October 2026
Labels
Official record from the register · Calculated derived by Governance Register. Anything added by an organisation or person is labelled as provided by them.

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