Last month it received almost £5m, and now Brooklands Museum has been awarded two grants of £225,000 and £200,000 to restore the world's first purpose-built motor racing track and aircraft factory to its former glory.

Surrey Comet:

Surrey County Council has given £225,000 to the Weybridge museum to return the finishing straight to how it looked in 1939, and will support the expansion of the team in charge of educational visits.

Surrey confirmed the funding on March 13, as part of a promotion of economic growth after Brooklands has determined to boost annual visitor numbers by 25 per cent, to 215,000.

Arts Council England gave £200,000 from the Museum Resilience Fund to go towards a new climate-controlled archive store, a training and restoration workshop and a reading and research room in the Flight Shed.

Allan Winn, Brooklands Museum director, said: "This substantial funding from Arts Council England gives a tremendous boost to the project, and is a further vindication of its over-arching aim of helping to inspire today's and future generations to embrace the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) which are so vital to this country's manufacturing industries and its continuing prosperity."

Philip Hammond, MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, said of the funding last month: "This is excellent news for Brooklands and is a great reflection of the UK's industrial and cultural heritage.

"I congratulate Allan Winn and his team on their hard work and perseverance over several years - this is a fantastic boost for the museum."