Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. Herbert Art Gallery & Museum is a museum, art gallery, records archive, learning centre, media studio and creative arts facility on Jordan Well, Coventry, England. The museum is named after Sir Alfred Herbert, a Coventry industrialist and philanthropist whose gifts enabled the original building to be opened in 1960. Building began in 1939, with an interruption by the Second World War, and the Herbert opened in 1960. In 2008, it reopened after a E14 million refurbishment. The Herbert is run by Culture Coventry, a registered charity, and admission is free. It derives financial support from donations, sales at the museum shop, and hiring the buildings out. In 2010, the museum and gallery received more than 300,000 visitors, making it one of the most popular free tourist attractions in the West Midlands. Museums in Coventry before the Herbert included the museum of the Coventry City Guild and the Benedictine Museum, opened by J. B. Shelton in the 1930s. However, Coventry City Council's collection of art treasures and museum pieces were housed in various buildings and so the council acquired a half acre site over a number of years costing E35,375. In 1938 the philanthropist Sir Alfred Herbert donated E100,000 to the Corporation to erect a Gallery and Museum on the site. Plans were drawn up by the Leicester architect Albert Herbert, a cousin of Sir Alfred, and building began the following year. The city's destruction during the Coventry Blitz meant construction was suspended with only the basement completed. City architect Donald Gibson's radical rebuilding plan for Coventry city centre became war time propaganda for the post-war reconstruction of Britain. But, post-war economies required Gibson to concentrate on a building programme for the suburbs. Completion of the first building under his plan was delayed until 1953. New plans for the museum were drawn up in 1952 by the Leicester architects, Albert Herbert & Son, and in May 1954 the foundation stone was laid by Herbert, who also donated a further E100,000 to the project. Herbert died in May 1957, and the museum and art gallery that bears his name was opened on 9 March 1960 by his third wife Lady Herbert. The first phase of a two-phase refurbishment was completed in 2005 with E3 million of funds from Coventry City Council, Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund. During the refurbishment, it was considered that a painting by seventeenth-century artist Luca Giordano was too large and fragile to be moved. Instead the 3.02 by 5.83 metres canvas, which has been with The Herbert since the 1960s and described as one of the museum's most prized paintings, was boarded up in 2005 and uncovered three years later in time for the opening. In early 2008, the second phase was completed at a cost of E14 million. A new entrance on Bayley Lane was provided, along with a 500 sq metre glass-covered court extension. The extended buildings include a new cafe area, education, training, creative media and arts information facilities, additional gallery spaces for temporary exhibitions, and facilities for conservation work and to preserve the city records and archive. The Herbert is part of Culture Coventry, which also manages three additional local heritage sites: Coventry Transport Museum, the Old Grammar School, and the Lunt Roman Fort situated three miles outside Coventry at Baginton. The museum won the Guardian Family Friendly Award 2010. The same year, the gallery was shortlisted for the Art Fund Prize in recognition of its outstanding work in engaging new and diverse audiences.