The Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes has been awarded £58,200 to work on plans to create new Bronze Age galleries.

The money has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund and now the museum will progress to the second stage of the HLF application process.

The project will cost more than £200,000 and the museum, in Long Street, will have to contribute between £20,000 and £30,000.

The new galleries will feature the rich finds from burials in the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site.

The project will feature the unique gold and amber finds that define the Bronze Age Wessex culture and are currently locked away in the museum’s vaults.

The most famous of these are the 4,000-year-old finds from Bush Barrow, including a gold lozenge, belt hook, stone mace and richly decorated bronze dagger.

The new displays will also include objects excavated from Upton Lovell and Manton as well as recent finds from Marden Henge, near Devizes.

The plans being developed by the museum will link with the new English Heritage Stonehenge Visitor Centre and new galleries planned by Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

Museum director David Dawson said: “This award is fantastic news for us. We will be able to inspire visitors to the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site with the stories of the people who built and used these iconic monuments.”