Scott's Antarctic hut saved after £3.5m fundraising drive

Fundraisers have hit their target in a multi-million-pound bid to save legendary explorer Captain Robert Scott's Antarctic hut.

A hundred years to the day since his arrival in Antarctica for his final expedition, the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) announced it had ensured the conservation of the Ross Sea Hut.

It was erected in 1911 at Cape Evans on Ross Island.

Scott and four companions reached the South Pole in January 1912, a few weeks after Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his party got there. Scott and his team died on the return journey.

The hut has survived, but warm summers followed by freezing winters have meant it needed urgent repairs.

It contained more than 8,000 artefacts dating from the age of Antarctic exploration, making it a treasured time capsule.

A project to preserve Scott's hut and the three others that survive in the Ross Sea area was launched in 2002 by the Princess Royal.

An initial 3.5 million was raised, partly for planning and preparations, and partly to complete all the work on the hut at Cape Royds used by Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1907-9 expedition.

The focus then moved on to Scott's hut, for which a further 3.5m was needed.

Yesterday, it was announced the sum had been secured and that conservation work - managed and carried out by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, a sister organisation to the UKAHT - was well under way.

UKAHT chairwoman Philippa Foster Back, whose grandfather was part of Scott's expedition, said: "It is both an incredible achievement and a great relief that we have managed to raise the money to save the hut just in time for the historic centenary in 2012.

"It shows just how much the British people cherish the memory of Captain Scott that they have put their hands in their pockets to save a small wooden building on the other side of the world that few of them will ever visit in person."