The Bowes Museum

The Bowes Museum is in the town of Barnard Castle in County Durham. It is the legacy of John Bowes and his wife Josephine Benoite. They wanted to bring art to the masses and this purpose built Museum is thanks to them, so it is said that the building was not completed until after their death. A friend described the style of the building as French Municipal, which sums it up really; it wouldn’t look out of place in a town square in France, so is a little incongruous in a typical English market town.

The artefacts cover European furniture, ceramics and paintings from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. It includes paintings by Caneletto ,Goya and many others and Recoco furniture.

The highlight of Bowes is the Silver Swan. It is a 240 year old clockwork swan covered in silver leaf, which moves as smoothly as if it was alive and eats a fish. You can see it in action at 2:00pm every afternoon and also by clicking on this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/england/realmedia/insideout/northeast/090114_io_north_east_swan?size=16x9&bgc=C0C0C0&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1

There are also temporary exhibitions. It is good to see that the museum promotes local artists from the present day as well as having fine art from the past. It isn’t all serious fine art and at the moment there is an exhibition called ‘Toys Tales’ which is all about children’s television characters.

The Museum has a rather odd and unenforced photography policy. To take a photograph, you pay extra, but can’t use a flash, they don’t do anything to people who ignore the rule though, so what is the point?

The swan is the fun part of the visit for anyone and there is much else to see that will please you even if you just have a passing interest in fine art.

A lovely Sunday

We had a late and leisurly breakfast buffet done by me with lots of assistance. The only criticism was that there was no maple syrup for the pancakes.

Afterwards some of us went for a moderate walk into Staindrop follwed by a pint, others stayed at the Old Lodge relaxed.

It hasn't rained on us and was nice and sunny this morning. The good thing about going away at this time of year is that there are no high expectations of good weather. That it has been warm for the time of year and sunny has been a bonus.

Those of us who went for the walk enjoyed a drink in the The Wheatsheaf. Not many people in there, but it seems to be a hub of community activity judging by the trophys and notices about local groups. On the way back the women walked briskly and were home well before the blokes.

We have had a lazy afternoon and evening enjoying a rib of beef and all the trimmings. The chefs for this task excel at roast beef and did us proud. A good end to an enjoyable weekend.

A weekend in the countryside

The Old Lodge

The Bowes Museum

High Force

During the summer a friend had the excellent idea of a group of us hiring somewhere in the countryside for a few days and now here we (seven of us) are. We are staying at The Old Lodge in Staindrop, which is near Barnard Castle in County Durham. The Old Lodge dates from the 14th Century and feels like a rather grand home, not a holiday let. Careful attention has been paid to every detail. Not only do we have wireless Internet access, but nice little touches like a wireless printer and Bose docking station for our ipods. I will do a separate post, soon about our wonderful base for the weekend.

We arrived on Friday and toasted the beginning of our long weekend with some fizz. We ate an excellent fish pie and washed it down with white wine, followed by more wine and conversation. We teased the person who has organised the weekend for suggesting we bring two bottles of wine each and we will continue to do so. It is fair to say that we went over our suggested four glass ration on Friday, but we didn't stay up that late or drink that much, even so I felt decidedly 'fragile' this morning. The breakfast buffet task, which was allocated to me was completed, but took great effort.

Today we split into two groups, the hikers and strollers/ gallery goers. I opted to stroll. We did a short walk to High Force, which is a waterfall on land owned by the Raby Castle estate. We had to pay to park and walk on the trail and were surprised that they didn't extract money for us to have a pee as well. Times must be hard for the aristocracy. We were amused by the many signs on the trail with detailed instructions about what we could and could not do. Basically they were saying if you kill or injure yourself, its your fault.

Later we went to the Bowes Museum (more detail about this in a later post). It is a palatial setting with many fine art works. We loved the clockwork silver swan which moved around so smoothly it looked as though it was computer generated.

We then went into Barnard Castle, an archetypal English market town. We had a lovely traditional lunch at a cafe.

After eating we decided to call into a gallery I had spotted on our way to the Cafe called Mouncey Fine Art. We were delighted with the impressive range range of ceramics and paintings. I purchased a humorous dog by Marie Prett and was tempted to buy a piece by Christine Cummings (another dog). We came back to the Lodge and met up with the hikers. We shared stories of our day and decided on a name for my ceramic dog. He will be called Barnard.

We have had an enjoyable evening in. Delicious Jambalaya, great choice of music, stimulating conversation and good fun.