NEWTON Abbot Museum has won an award for its exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of John Lethbridge, the pioneering 18th-century inventor and diver from Newton Abbot.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, charting Lethbridge's career salvaging shipwrecks for the East India Company from the world's oceans, has won the Nautiek Award from The Historical Diving Society.

The judges said the exhibition 'has done most to forward the knowledge of diving history to the general public. The judging panel, all whom had visited the John Lethbridge exhibition, was unanimous in its choice'.

Curator Felicity Cole said: 'I am really chuffed to bits.'

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