Last updated 12:53, Saturday, 04 October 2008

A £200,000 EXTENSION to Maryport’s popular Lakes Coast Aquarium is set to open next week.

Aquarium owner Mark Vollers has added a conference/classroom and an exhibition area with financial assistance from the Maryport Heritage Trust and West Lakes Renaissance.

A Wild Solway exhibition, free to the public, will mark the opening of the new space on Saturday, October 11. It will coincide with world Shark Week, and displays will include prize-winning photographs of sharks.

The exhibition will also include a short film “Stewards of the deep”.

The exhibition and conference area will allow Mr Vollers to educate and inform visitors about sea life, and especially species that live in the Solway Firth.

He said: “In the autumn and outside school holidays the Lake District gets a lot of visitors who do not have children with them. They want something different and I think that if we can inform as well as entertain them we will attract more people from the national park to the coast.”

The display hall will have changing exhibitions. Most will be of an aquatic nature but they will include historical and cultural aspects of Maryport.

The exhibition hall will be entered by way of a garden, featuring large slabs of Honister slate.

A huge fish tank will feature fish of the Solway. A counter will sell educational souvenirs. And next to the gallery will be a large room for film shows, school party visits and to hire for parties, meetings or conferences.