A partnership of Cornish museums led by a landmark Penzance attraction is celebrating this week after securing more than a quarter of a million pounds in funding.

The five museums, which include Falmouth Art Gallery, the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, the Royal Cornwall Museum and Porthcurno Telegraph Museum scooped a further £253,000 of Arts Council England cash to help support sixteen new partnership projects this year.

The projects include a cultural tourism marketing campaign, education projects, fundraising and income-earning schemes, energy conservation and collections work.

Dubbed the "For Cornwall Partnership", the museum grouping was formed last year and has already completed a £110,000 programme of work over the last seven months, using Arts Council money.

Director of partnership leader Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Alison Bevan said: "It has been a busy year for museums in Cornwall.

"With support from Cornwall Council, we worked up a museums strategy for the county which was launched last autumn.

"This coincided with the announcement of our first For Cornwall bid which allowed us to implement some of the things in that strategy. Now that partnership has grown by the addition of the Royal Cornwall Museum and we have been supported with even more money."

The partnership model is now beginning to be emulated by other medium-sized and smaller museums in rural areas, Mrs Bevan said, because the benefits "are obvious".

She said in the future the grouping aims to creating a "strong network of sustainable organisations, right at the heart of Cornwall's rich cultural life."

"We also want to show the world that a group of diverse museums, scattered across England’s longest and most remote county, can demonstrate excellence and be a nationally recognised model of how museums can best work together for a common purpose," she said.