Compton Verney took 10 years to complete

The 10 museums chosen range from a small Scottish community project to a �64m development of art galleries at Compton Verney, Warwickshire.

The �12m courtyard development at the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University is also competing.

Four museums will be chosen to go through to the next round on 18 March.

The overall winner, selected by a panel, will be revealed on 26 May.

Among the nominees is the Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum on North Uist in the Western Isles, which offers arts workshops, youth groups and archives relating to the community.

Click here for the full shortlist

It has about 30,000 visitors a year and has four full-time staff and more than 30 volunteers.

The National Mining Museum of Wales, which has also received a nomination, sees former miners act as guides to take visitors 300 feet below the ground of the Big Pit to experience what life was like for the miners.

Former miners show visitors around the Big Pit in Blaenafon in Wales

The museum was reopened in February 2004 following a �7.1m redevelopment, creating 13 new jobs to help welcome its average 141,000 yearly visitors.

Hospital history

The transformation of a derelict 18th Century mansion at Compton Verney has created at least 20 gallery spaces, housing different forms of art from across Europe and China from historical to contemporary.

The 10-year project was the life-long dream of Sir Peter Moore, who funded it through his foundation.

A former herring curing factory in Great Yarmouth houses the Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life, telling the story of the local community which was heavily involved in the herring curing industry through the early 20th Century.

Also included in the shortlist is The Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury, central London, which opened on the site of a hospital for abandoned children in 2004.

The museum tells the story of the hospital and the lives of the 27,000 children which it cared for during its 200-year history.

It also houses an art collection in 18th Century interiors including works by Hogarth, Gainsborough and Reynolds.

The 10 shortlisted museums

• Museum of Barnstaple & North Devon for Shapland & Petter of Barnstaple: 150 years

• Big Pit, National Mining Museum of Wales, Blaenafon

• National Trust West Midlands for Back to Backs, Birmingham

• The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge for its Courtyard Development

• Compton Verney, Warwickshire

• Coventry Transport Museum

• Time and Tide, Museum of Great Yarmouth Life, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

• Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Art Gallery, Lochmaddy, North Uist for its Carn Chearsabhagh Project

• The Foundling Museum, London

• Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, Co Durham

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