McInnes Usher McKnight Architects has been appointed to lead a £7.1m project to update the Lake District’s foremost art gallery, adding new facilites and exhibition space.

The practice will work with Julian Harrap Conservation Architects and landscape architect Sarah Price on Abbot Hall Art Gallery and Museum, in Kendal, after venue operator Lakeland Arts selected it following an April call for expressions of interest.

Abbot Hall is a grade I-listed 18th-century mansion and houses 6,500 works by JMW Turner, John Ruskin, Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson and Kurt Schwitters. The site also incorporates the Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry in a grade II-listed coach house and stables.

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