Norwich Castle Joins the National Gallery on the 2026 Art Fund Museum of the Year Shortlist
A medieval castle in East England is now competing with one of London’s most established museums for the UK’s most closely watched museum prize. Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery has been shortlisted for the 2026 Art Fund Museum of the Year alongside the National Gallery, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, The Box in Plymouth, and V&A East Storehouse in London.
The winner will be announced on June 25 at a ceremony at Cutty Sark in London. The top prize is £120,000; the four other finalists will each receive £20,000.
Norwich Castle’s nomination reflects the scale of its recent transformation. After a £27.5 million redevelopment, the Castle Keep reopened in August 2025 as part of the Royal Palace Reborn project. The museum says the renewed spaces include a new Gallery of Medieval Life developed with the British Museum, with interiors inspired by the furnishings, textiles, and painted decoration that may have greeted Henry I during his visit to Norwich in 1121. Art Fund has described the site as the most accessible castle in the UK.
The National Gallery’s shortlist centers on a year of major bicentenary activity, including an £85 million upgrade to the Sainsbury Wing entrance, Jeremy Deller’s public artwork in Trafalgar Square, and C C Land: The Wonder of Art, a major rehang that reframed the collection for a broad public audience. The institution is also moving ahead with plans for a £350 million extension at St. Vincent’s House to house modern and contemporary art.
Elsewhere on the shortlist, V&A East Storehouse has drawn more than 500,000 visitors since opening in Stratford last May, with a model that removes physical barriers and glass cases to bring visitors closer to national collections. The Fitzwilliam Museum, founded in 1816, was recognized for programming that included Glenn Ligon’s first major solo exhibition in the UK, All Over the Place, and Rise Up, which paired historic objects with contemporary art to examine abolitionist histories. The Box in Plymouth, which marked its fifth birthday last year, has welcomed more than one million visitors and says it has generated £244 million for the city’s economy.
The shortlist suggests how broadly the museum field is being judged now: not only by the quality of collections, but by access, interpretation, civic reach, and the ability to make old institutions feel newly alive.
