A HAMPSHIRE museum has been awarded a £100,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

The Royal Green Jackets Museum in Winchester has been awarded the cash to help fund a Battle of Waterloo bicentenary exhibition.

The museum, in Romsey Road, will contribute a similar amount of money to the project, which includes developing a learning space for school visits.

The museum’s chairman, Sir Christopher Wallace, said: “Our aim is to create an exhibition that explains in terms that everyone, especially younger visitors, understands, what happened at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, and why the outcome was so important and a defining moment in British and European history that still resonates today.

“This grant is hugely welcome in helping us to achieve our aim. I am absolutely delighted that we have received it.”

The money will be used to replace old displays and to conserve the museum’s huge diorama of the Waterloo battlefield, with its 21,500 model soldiers and 9,000 horses.

The model shows all the military units present, including two antecedent regiments of The Royal Green Jackets, the 52nd Light Infantry and the 95th Rifles.

State-of-the-art technology and audio-visual aids will also feature in the new exhibition.

The museum has been working with students from the University of Winchester to identify ways of engaging the young.

Stuart McLeod, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund South East, said: “It’s so important that HLF grants help people, especially young people, learn more about and better understand defining moments in British history like the Battle of Waterloo.

“In the run-up to the centenary of the battle in 2015, this timely project will introduce a whole new audience to an event that changed this country and Europe forever.”

The exhibition will open on March 25, 2015.