The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) will be giving £31m worth of grants to three UK projects.

The UK’s oldest museum, the Ashmolean in Oxford, will receive £15m towards its £50m refurbishment scheme, which will see the museum double its display space.

Founded in 1683, the Ashmolean holds collections of art and archaeology, with unique items including the Jericho Skull, which is thought to be the earliest example of portraiture in the world.

A further £11m has been earmarked for a British Waterways project to create 9.5km of navigable canal and a 6km walking trail in Gloucestershire.

The scheme, located in the Cotswold Canals, is expected to attract over quarter of a million people to the area once it is finished and includes the restoration of a number of historic structures.

The Natural History Museum (NHM) also received a further £5m for the creation of the Darwin Centre – which will enable the museum to build what it claims to be the world’s largest collection of insects and pressed plants. The grant is an addition to £15m previously awarded to the project by the HLF.

Commenting on the grants, Carole Souter, HLF’s director, said: “Today’s grant announcement illustrates the diversity of projects that we have funded over the past 10 years.”

“These three projects open up the past for millions of people to enjoy and help the public to look at art and science in entirely new ways.”

But there was little to cheer for the Victoria & Albert museum, which had its £15m application for its controversial Spiral extension turned down.

Designed by Daniel Libeskind, the project was initially proposed eight years ago but has since failed to progress beyond its design stage.

Souter said: “We thought long and hard about this proposal but finally decided that it would not be able to deliver the major heritage benefits that we expect to see for such a large request.

“Daniel Libeskind’s vision for the V&A’s Spiral is imaginative but did not deliver well against our key requirements of conservation, education and enjoyment of the UK’s heritage.”

Since its introduction in 1995. the HLF has allocated more than £3bn to more than 15,000 projects across the UK.