A LANDMARK museum in Lymington reopens this weekend after a multi-million pound renovation - and a New Forest themed exhibition provides a "celebration" of an internationally-renowned sculptor in the new gallery space.

St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery opens its doors today after being closed since September 2016 to undergo a full scale refurbishment.

The project was supported by £1.78m from the Heritage Lottery Fund and includes an improved entrance and foyer, a new café, three gallery rooms, a public research facility and activity spaces.

The first exhibition in the new gallery is Birds of the New Forest by Geoffrey Dashwood, with wildlife expert Chris Packham curating the exhibits.

Mr Packham, who is a long-time admirer of Mr Dashwood's work and lives in the New Forest, sees St Barbe Museum as a genuine local treasure.

"The museum overall punches above its weight. We have a number of great regional museums around and St Barbe is right up there at the top of the list," Mr Packham said.

"They manage to get exhibits from all over the world and it's part of a trend.

"In the past everything was up in London, but now you can see these glorious works at St Barbe.

"Geoffrey happens to live in the New Forest, but he has grown to be respected internationally and creates these amazing sculptures.

"From my point of view it is great as it gets the message out about the birds in our area, some of which are currently not having the best time.

"The gallery is a celebration of Geoffrey's work and also of the energy and effort put in by all the team at St Barbe."

Alongside the new gallery space, the museum - dedicated to the history of Lymington and the surrounding areas - has been completely overhauled putting the historic items at centre stage.

The award-winning Boldre Haul is on display at the former school building.

On the renovation, director of St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Mark Tomlinson, said: "We were always struggling with the same problem the school did - which was a lack of space.

"We didn't have more space to put in with this renovation, but we've used the space we have much more cleverly and created a regionally significant art gallery and museum that has flexible spaces and gives people much more access to our collections."