NEW £21,000 conference facilities were installed this week at the Bar Convent in Blossom Street, York.

The Georgian building has been a conference centre since 1987, but its business manager, Richard Masefield, recently reported that the equipment was largely out of date.

Money for the new gear came largely from the Pilgrim Trust, founded by Edward Stephen Harkness in New York in 1930 with an endowment of £2 million.

Its grant to the Bar Convent came under the heading of arts and learning for improvements to non-national museums and galleries.

There were also grants from York-based Persimmon plc, the Sylvia and Colin Shepherd Trust, the Jane Hodge Foundation, the Hon Olga Polizzi and JC Bamford Excavators.

The revamping of the conference facilities follows the opening of 15 bedrooms last April to bed-and-breakfast guests, a project financed jointly by John Paul Getty II and the nuns of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Apart from being a museum, the Bar Convent also houses a licensed caf and a gift shop.

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