A QUIRKY café which has provided customers with a chance to drink in breath-taking views across the Worcestershire countryside has been recognised in a national award scheme.

The open air Sky Café placed high on the scaffolding around the National Trust’s Croome Court last year received a Highly Commended accolade at the national Museums and Heritage Awards, which celebrates the very best work in the industry. The café gained its recognition in the Trading and Enterprise category.

The annual Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence, now in its 14th year, recognise projects of excellence, innovative and ground-breaking exhibitions from galleries and visitor attractions across the UK and Europe.

These range from remarkable achievements of national institutions to projects crafted with limited resources and those championing their staff and volunteers who work hard to deliver inspiring visitor experiences.

The award winners were announced last week at Northumberland Avenue’s The Grand, off Trafalgar Square, London, and was a sell out with more than 300 representatives attending from museums and heritage institutions around the country.

Amy Forster-Smith, Croome’s House and Visitor Experience manager who accepted the award during the ceremony said it was a bit nerve wracking at first because the Trading and Enterprise category was the first one to be announced.

She said: “Croome was up against a lot of stiff competition and we were really proud just to get on the finalists list as they are such important awards. They’re a bit like the Oscars of the heritage world, so to actually win something was astounding.”

Other finalists in the category were the retail shop at the Whitworth gallery in Manchester and at Chester Cathedral, initiatives at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and finally the enterprising culture at the Black Country Living Museum which scooped the top award.

Other categories included Volunteer of the Year, which had hundreds of nominations but only seven finalists. One of the finalists was Dr Bob Shaw, chairman of the Defford Airfield Heritage Group and a Croome volunteer.

He was nominated by the National Trust team after his involvement with the extremely successful RAF Defford Museum at Croome. He has helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to develop the Second World War buildings into wartime museums and his nomination was just a small token of the appreciation for Bob’s massive contribution to Croome’s success.

The Sky Café was open at Croome while the mansion was undergoing repairs and had scaffolding up on the building. Visitors could climb the scaffolding steps to the viewing platform to enjoy food and drink while taking in the views of the parkland, designed by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown.

Now that the scaffolding has been removed, the café has moved to the basement in the building.