A newly restored museum - The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum, covering the history of Britain's colonial past and modern-day Commonwealth, is due to open on 26 September in Bristol. The museum was first established in 1986 as the Museum of Empire & Commonwealth.

The museum's permanent exhibition will be the first in the world to be dedicated to a study of Britain's 500-year colonial history and will be housed in a grade 1 listed building designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel - the old station at Temple Meads.

The exhibition is designed to show how the British Empire evolved into the independent nations of the Commonwealth and examine the legacy, both in Britain and worldwide, of the interchange of peoples, languages, institutions, trade and cultures.

The museum has raised over £4m in grants and donations. The main focus of the first phase of fundraising was to restore the station building, which has recently been nominated as world heritage site. The station had been neglected for over fifty years and a major restoration programme began in 1992.

The Museum's collections now total over 75,000 items ranging from uniforms and other costumes to domestic items and ethnographic material. Details: www.empiremuseum.co.uk