Gawthorpe's Brontë connection

I loved this rather beautiful tryptych showing different views of Gawthorpe Hall. There was no explanatory label but it obviously depicts the Hall after its renovation by Sir Charles Barry in the 1850s.

What is now the drawing room (below) was at one time a dining room, and has original 1603 Jacobean panelling, though the fire surround and some of the furniture date to the Victorian restoration. The inlaid table on the right, a teapoy that held a tea chest (when tea was such a valuable commodity that it was kept under lock and key), is by A W N Pugin, who collaborated with Barry on this private house, as well as more famously on the Houses of Parliament.

The Hall has connections with Charlotte Brontë, whose home in Haworth was about eighteen miles away. She visited Gawthorpe in 1850 and again in January 1855, where it is said she caught a chill from walking around the grounds, from which she never recovered. She died in March 1855. Apparently the green sofa in the drawing room dates back to that time and the Brontë bottom may have settled upon it! (Wow!)

There are many wonderful portraits displayed in the Hall, many loaned by the National Portrait Gallery. There are also some touching family photos. The grouping below shows members of the Kay-Shuttleworth family, whose two sons (in the heart shaped frame) were both killed in the Great War.

The magnificent four-poster bed (below) was a 21st birthday gift to Miss Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth, the last of the family to live in Gawthorpe Hall. She was an accomplished needlewoman, and from 1905 to 1918 she made the bedspread and hangings, embroidered in crewel work. They were finished on Armistice Day 1918, commemorated with a little palm tree and the date. During her life, she amassed a huge collection of textiles from all over the world, as a means of preserving them and disseminating information about the traditions and skills involved in their production. Some of these are on display in Gawthorpe Hall. See here for an interesting blog post about the Gawthorpe Textile Collection.