Lakeland Arts Trust | Sykehouse Cottage

January 12, 2016
by vanessarigg

Arts Round Up for the New Year 2016

Abbot Hall, Blackwell House and the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere are all favourite trips out for us when we are staying at Sykehouse Cottage. I sometimes think people forget about these fine museums in their haste to get up a mountain …

Abbott Hall Art Gallery in Kendal have the fabulous “Canaletto: Celebrating Britain” running until 14 February 2016. “Canaletto makes you feel as if you’re wandering around with your eyeballs cleaned.” Robert Clark, Guardian Guide Oct 2015

Abbot Hall Art Gallery: until 14 February 2016

Then from 11 March, both Abbott Hall and Blackwell will be showing “Laura Ford: Sculpture and Drawings”. Located at Blackwell on the lawns, with select pieces in the main house and at Abbot Hall, this exhibition will comprise Ford’s earlier work together with new sculptures. Laura Ford describes her work as sculptures dressed as people who are dressed as animals, as they meld together ideas of childhood memory with a disturbing edge.

Abbot Hall Art Gallery: 11 March – 25 June 2016
Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House: 11 March – 4 September 2016

The Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere has its “Shepherds to Charabancs” exhibition running until 28 February. Subtitled “Changing Life in Grasmere 1800 to 1900” the show has been inspired by a recent addition to the museum an 1859 survey map of Grasmere. Curated by The Grasmere History Society the exhibition explains the transformation of Grasmere through local stories and brought alive with objects belonging to local residents as well as maps, artefacts and images from the Wordsworth Trust’s collection.

The Wordsworth Museum : until 28 February.

Abbot Hall, Blackwell House and the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere are all favourite trips out for us when we are staying at Sykehouse Cottage.

December 15, 2015
by vanessarigg

Sails at Windermere Jetty

Just discovered this lovely blog post by Windermere Jetty about preserving and conserving the old sails in their collection. Their oldest sail (pictured here) belongs to 1934 17ft Windermere yacht, Dawn.

If you want to read more about their work click here.

The museum is committed to conserving, saving and sharing the internationally important Windermere boat collection and their focus is on telling the stories behind these boats and they want to actively involve visitors in the crafts and tradition that built them.

Windermere Jetty, designed by Carmody Groarke architects, is due to re-open in 2017. In the meantime the museum is ‘Just Visiting’ Brockhole, the Lake District Visitor Centre.

July 24, 2015
by vanessarigg

Windermere Weekender

A Celebration of Boats, Steam and Stories from Windermere Jetty at Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House: Saturday 29 & Sunday 30 August, 10.30am – 5pm

Our very favourite Arts and Crafts house is planning a marvellous weekend of interactive arts and crafts for the last weekend of August. In the grounds, there will be innovative sculptures, live music, craft activities, and a large scale creative weaving project and much more.

A great fun Lancaster-based theatre company called Inner State who seem to specialise in “Boats with Legs” will be performing and Dan Fox’s Sound Intervention will be creating some marvellous sounds.

Admission includes entrance to the house, exhibition and all activities. Adult £8.50 (without donation £7.70), Children FREE. More details about the event, click here.

February 11, 2015
by vanessarigg

5 Half Term Favourites

When we come up for a holiday at Sykehouse Cottage, there are certain things we love to do. Here are five of our favourites.

1) Walk across the fields for a gorgeous pub lunch at the Blacksmiths Arms, Broughton Mills. Click here for details of opening hours on their website.

2) Ride on the La’al Ratty : the Ravenglass and Eskdale Steam Railway. Click here for their details.

3) Run around Muncaster Castle for the “Luck” and a pose in the stocks. Click here for their website.

4) Imagine, for a moment, living at Blackwell, one of the country’s finest Arts and Crafts houses. The stained glass! The views! Visit the website here.

5) Have a mooch around the lovely clothes, craft and book shops in Market Street, Ulverston.

January 29, 2015
by vanessarigg

A little Goldsworthy.

Slits Cut into Frozen Snow, Stormy … Blencathra, Cumbria, 12 February.

I notice that Abbot Hall Art Gallery’s talk next Monday 2 February, 2pm, is on their series of Andy Goldsworthy photographs. Goldsworthy’s pastoral style of land art has fallen rather out of fashion lately though I still hold his Sheepfolds and Grizedale Forest’s Taking a Wall for a Walk in great affection: they sit quietly, playfully, in the Cumbrian landscape, making me appreciate the art of stone walling. On our picnic walks from Sykehouse Cottage, we still enjoy making a little “Goldsworthy” every now and again. Usually “fallen stars” of sticks, sometimes flags of leaves and twigs, occasionally balanced stones on river beaches. Little Goldsworthys appeal to the scavenger, the creative and the mark maker in us all.

Taking a Wall for a Walk – Grizedale Forest

The Gallery holds talks about works in their collection every Monday exc Bank Holidays which are included in the admission price. Abbot Hall is well worth a visit if you are in the Kendal area. For further details of their events and opening times, please click on this link to take you to their website.

January 18, 2015
by vanessarigg

Windermere Jetty

If you read many of our posts, you will realise we are fascinated by all things industrial in the history of the Lake District and so we are thrilled about The Lakeland Arts’ new development, Windermere Jetty. This is the new name for the Windermere Steamboat Museum and will house a unique collection of historic vessels with a working and possibly viewable (yes, please) conservation workshop. Scanning through the publicity, it looks as though “the Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories” will be a fun and inspiring experience and a great addition to a visitors’ itinerary.

The opening of Windermere Jetty is scheduled for completion in 2016 and, in the meantime, Lakeland Arts are “Just Visiting” at Brockhole, the Lake District Visitor Centre, where you can find more information this exciting project. Click this link through to the Lakeland Arts main website. And this link will take you to their informative WordPress blog.

July 3, 2014
by vanessarigg

Hepworth at Abbot Hall

We are very excited at Sykehouse Cottage as Abbot Hall comes up trumps again and brings a stunning collection of Barbara Hepworth sculpture to Kendal for their Summer Exhibition from 5 July to 28 September. Apart from Barbara Hepworth: A Retrospective at Tate Liverpool in 1994, this is the first significant exhibition of her work in the North West for over sixty years. It will contain some of Hepworth’s most iconic sculptures including Stringed Figure (Curlew), 1956, Torso III (Galatea), 1958, and Moon Form, 1968, alongside prints, photographs and ephemera detailing the artist’s life long relationship with the landscape. Lakeland Arts are working closely with the Hepworth Estate to secure key works as well as borrowing from national institutions for this important exhibition.

The landscape provided unending inspiration for Hepworth’s art. And perhaps you will be inspired by the beautiful Lakeland landscape when you next visit?

Kendal is 30 miles (about 45mins drive) from Sykehouse Cottage and is well worth a day trip for Abbot Hall, Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry, of course, and numerous shops and coffee houses …

If you would like to know more about Abbot Hall Art Gallery click here.

May 11, 2013
by vanessarigg

Museums at Night Festival 2013

There is something deliciously exciting about being somewhere you are not normally allowed – especially at night. Here in the South Lakes there are some fun things to do over the 16 – 18th May as part of the national Museums at Night Festival.

‘a greeting of good ale’ 16 May 7.30-9.00 £4 Dove Cottage. Wordsworth is famously known as the “simple water-drinking bard”, but the archives tell a different story. Discover more about the history of Dove Cottage, formerly the Dove and Olive-Bough Inn, and enjoy a free beer and food tasting. Further details at The Wordsworth Trust website here.

Arts & Crime, Murder at Blackwell 16 May at 5.30, 6.30, 7.30, 8.30. Free but limited to 15 so booking essential. You’ve mistakenly entered the end of a dinner party in the 1920s: what has happened and is someone still ‘at large’? Let the theatre company, Bear Necessities, lead you through Blackwell in search of the culprit. Further details at the Blackwell website here.

Dozing at Dove Cottage 17 May & Secret Sleepover 18 – 19 May Dove Cottage Dozing at Dove Cottage, for 14+, will be an eventful evening of activities exploring the cottage, a bite to eat, and a movie marathon followed by the sleepover. Listen to some ghostly tales on the torch-lit trail and enjoy twilight arts & crafts activities before setting up camp in the museum for the night! The Secret Sleepover is for children aged 7 – 13 years old, but adults will enjoy it too – a minimum of 1 adult for every 5 children. £10 pp includes breakfast, accommodation and materials for activities. Further details at The Wordsworth Trust website here.

Cranium Sculptorades at Abbot Hall 18 May From 6.00pm, games start after 7 until 10. Free event, just turn up on the night! Why stay in and play board games when the Lakeland Arts Trust team is challenging teams of visitors to a giant game of Cranium Sculptorades? Further details at the Abbot Hall website here.

April 28, 2013
by vanessarigg

George Romney : The Gower Family Portrait

Abbots Hall in Kendal is a hard working and welcoming museum. By that I mean it really makes the most of what it has got and attracts good touring exhibitions to grace its top floor. It has one permanent star artist, George Romney (1734-1802), who was born in Dalton-in-Furness and trained under a portrait painter named Christopher Steele in Kendal before moving to London. George’s masterpiece: The Gower Family: The Children of Granville, 2nd Earl Gower, (c 1776-7) is in Abbots Hall. This huge (203 x235cm) group portrait shows the older half sister, Anne, shaking her tambourine (on the right). The younger children dancing in a circle are his son and daughters from a third marriage. Yes, that’s a son staring directly at us from behind the middle dancing girl – not yet “breeched” as he is still in a dress. From left to right: Georgina, Susan, Granville and Charlotte Sophia. Romney had recently visited Italy and this work shows his up-to-the-minute interest in classical themes and poses with the dancing “Arcadian” children and antique column behind. Close up, the faces are wonderfully vivid portraits, full of character and life, however Granville’s body and arm don’t match the tilt of his head and the body is curiously unfinished compared to the rest of the family. I was guessing the children only sat for head portraits and maybe some full body sketches and that the details were added in at leisure. Was it finished off by an inept apprentice? Or was the patron impatient? Perhaps this background was considered unimportant? Or was it just a small fidgety boy?

I contacted the very helpful Romney Society and their Research Fellow, Alex Kidson, said that probably Granville was a late addition to the composition; his parents may have originally thought that at three years old he was too young to sit.

In his early 30s, Granville was painted again by another renowned artist, Thomas Lawrence, during his time as British Ambassador to Russia. This time he stood still.

If you would like to visit Abbots Hall and need more information, here’s their website.

January 28, 2013
by vanessarigg

Blackwell : Baille Scott’s masterpiece

Recently restored, Blackwell was built in 1900 as a holiday retreat for a wealthy Manchester brewery owner, just south of Bowness overlooking Windermere. (About 30 minutes drive from Sykehouse Cottage on the eastern side of Windermere.) The house is of international importance and was given a Grade 1 listing in 1998. So, although it’s quite expensive to visit (£7.20 Adults; Children up to 16 Free), it is DEFINITELY worth the money if you are interested in the Arts and Crafts.

It is a truly wonderful example of Arts and Crafts architecture, with many original decorative features still intact and there is a school of thought that Blackwell is such a complete vision precisely because it was built as a holiday home in the Lake District rather than a day to day residence. Think about it: who could live up to the designer’s perfect vision 24 – 7?

The rooms are carefully furnished with the blend of Arts and Crafts and early country-made furniture advocated by Baillie Scott, containing many pieces by the leading Arts & Crafts designers and studios – furniture by Morris & Co and Voysey, metalwork by W A S Benson and ceramics by Ruskin Pottery and William de Morgan.

The curators want you to experience this first hand and, deliciously, visitors are encouraged to sit and soak up the atmosphere in the beautiful fireplace inglenooks and are free to enjoy the house as it was originally intended, without roped-off areas.

The White Drawing Room

The house also run a series of well curated exhibitions and displays, usually with an Arts and Crafts feel, throughout the year and have a lovely Tea Room.

The first show of the year is called New Glass – Ancient Skill, Contemporary Artform. With a selection from the UK and Europe, the selling exhibition includes the work of established and emerging makers as well as drawings, models and photographic documentation of processes. Works will be shown in the exhibition galleries and through the house itself. The show is the first collaboration between the Lakeland Arts Trust and the Contemporary Glass Society and runs from 31^st January to 12^th May 2013.

Further details can be found by visiting Blackwell’s own site here.

Sykehouse Cottage

A beautiful C17th Holiday Cottage in the Lake District

Tag Archives: Lakeland Arts Trust