Bedford Museum & Art Gallery
Encyclopedia
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum is the principal art gallery
and museum
in Bedford
, Bedfordshire
, England
, run by Bedford Borough Council and the Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Collection.
to the east of the High Street on the north side of the River Great Ouse
Embankment. The Quarter includes the Castle Bailey gardens, the Castle Quay development of apartments, restaurants and shops, the Castle Mound, the John Bunyan Museum
and The Art Gallery & Museum itself. The Art Gallery & Museum is scheduled to reopen in early 2013.
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery was housed in an extended Victorian
house The gallery holds collections of watercolours, prints, ceramics
and furniture
as well as two of the largest groupings of works outside London by William Burges
and Edward Bawden
.
The Cecil Higgins Museum, as it was formerly known, opened its doors to the public on 25 July 1949. It was originally occupied the house built in 1846) as the home of Charles Higgins (1789–1862) and his family next to the Higgins & Sons Brewery.
The Museum had been created by the philanthropic brewer, Cecil Higgins (1856–1941) to house his collection of ceramics, glass and objets d’art for the benefit, interest and education of the inhabitants of, and visitors to, Bedford. Higgins realised that public museums were vulnerable, and to protect his collection he left a complex will, which stipulated how the museum was to be organised. He also left a trust fund, to be used for museum purposes, but principally for acquiring works of art (which included Decorative and Applied). While the collection of ceramics and glass was of high quality (each had been selected by James Kiddell of Sotheby’s), the collection lacked any notable paintings, save a few 18th century oils and a small collection of miniatures. The Art Gallery Board made the important decision to collect English watercolours in 1951. By the terms of Cecil Higgins’ will, all acquisitions have to be approved by a ‘recognised artistic authority such as ….the Victoria and Albert Museum
’ and in 1951, the then Director of the V&A, Sir Leigh Ashton, nominated Graham Reynolds, then Deputy Keeper of the Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design, to approve all watercolours and drawings for acquisition. Graham Reynolds remained an advisor until 1955 when he was succeeded by two authorities in their respective fields who were to shape and expand the collection significantly; Edward Croft-Murray (1907–1980) of the British Museum
and Ronald Alley (1926–99) of the Tate Gallery
, from 1957.
The period between 1952 and 1964 were the most productive in terms of collecting watercolours. Over 500 were acquired in twelve years. The Gallery was able to achieve this by the availability of watercolours from private collections in the post-war years and the generosity of Cecil Higgins. Edward Croft-Murray and Ronald Alley each brought their knowledge, vision and taste to the growing collection. Their collecting was divided — Croft-Murray to works made pre-1850 and Alley to post-1850. The Gallery owes a great deal to their dedication and skill, for they were to develop one of the finest post-war collections outside London. That the collection is strong in the greatest painters of every generation is one thing, but that it is also representative of artists who were once popular and influential in their own day and less so at the time of acquisition, is due to their expert scholarship.
In 1971, the collecting policy switched to the decorative arts, with the purchase of a large number of pieces from the Handley-Read Collection. The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery now holds over 200 pieces from the collection of Charles Handley-Read
and his wife Lavinia. Charles applied, in 1950, for a post at the Tate, after being rejected he reacted by ‘making a small museum of my own’. They began to form a collection of Victorian work at a time when few scholars and collectors took the period seriously, sometimes tracing the descendants of the architects and designers and buying directly from them. After initially making modest additions to his collection, a number of inheritances in 1964-5 meant that he could accelerate his buying. The Royal academy exhibition Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Art, The Handley-Read Collection in 1972 displayed their entire collection, sadly Charles and Lavinia did not live to see it, dying tragically in October and December 1972 consecutively.
From 1988, the focus returned to collecting prints, this time concentrating on the 20th century. The print collection now numbers over 400 pieces, including work by some of the finest British artists as well as internationally renowned figures such as Picasso, Lichtenstein and Dürer. The collection charts styles as well as print processes, from Whistler’s delicate etchings to Edward Bawden’s magnificent linocuts. The last major addition to the print collection was a generous donation in 2004 from the Scottish artist Alan Davie
(1920–Present) of over 70 prints, as well as 5 works in gouache
.
A significant addition to the collection has been made in recent years by acquiring a number of works by Dora Carrington
who attended Bedford High Scool and lived in Bedford with her family at 1 Rothsay Gardens. Her family were still in Bedford while Carrington attended the Slade School of Art. The collection includes two major oils, 'Mrs Box' and 'Spanish Boy', as well as drawings of her brothers — Noel Carrington
and Teddy Carrington — and Bedford Market.
In 2005, the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery merged with Bedford Museum, but retained its separate buildings and identity until it closed for refurbishment in 2007. While work on the Art Gallery did not commence straight away the adjoining Bedford Gallery underwent major refurbishment as Phase 1 of a much larger project, bringing the Grade II listed building back into use as a public space for the first time since the early 1970s. From April 2009 until April 2011 exhibitions of the Cecil Higgins Collections, alongside Bedford Museum collections and loaned exhibits, were held in Bedford Gallery. Following Phase 2 of the redevelopment project (see below), Bedford Gallery will be absorbed into the larger Gallery and Museum building, and accessed via the main entrance in the courtyard of the former brewery building.
In 1884, a solicitor called Charles Prichard, donated his private collection of fossils and minerals to Bedford Modern School, where he had formerly been a pupil. In addition he provided funds for the creation of a school museum to house the collections with an annual grant of £10 for its upkeep. Although additions were made to the original collections, oddities from all over the world began to feature as fathers and Old Boys travelled and took up positions in foreign lands. As a result the Museum became somewhat disrespectfully known as the ‘Old Curiosity Shop’.
The 1920s saw sweeping changes with the appointment of P.G. Langdon as Honorary Curator. Langdon’s aim was to reorganise the collections and establish them as a nucleus of a county museum. He acquired archaeological material including Roman and Saxon pottery and jewellery from Kempston
, replaced the worst of the natural history with the J. Steele Elliot collection of Bedfordshire birds, mammals, nests and eggs and, in 1929, developed two new refurbished galleries. For the first time the displays were opened to the public on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, for an admission price of 6d. With this new high profile status the museum became recognised as one of the best school museums in England.
The next major figure to influence the Museum’s future was F.W. Kuhlicke, a local historian and heraldry specialist who was appointed Honorary Curator in 1933. He continued to develop the collections but by the 1950s the school needed more space for the expanding numbers and discussions took place with the Borough of Bedford to see whether the Borough could take on the public museum role. The opportunity arose to combine the school museum with the smaller collections held by the Borough of Bedford and in 1962 the newly established town museum opened in a former garage and showroom on the Embankment, with Kuhlicke as the first Honorary Curator.
This, however, was only a temporary arrangement while more substantial premises were sought. In the 1970s the former Higgins and Sons Castle Brewery buildings became available. Built in 1838, this red brick industrial building offered greater potential for public service, temporary exhibitions and storage for the ever increasing collections of north Bedfordshire. The first professional Curator, John Turner, was appointed in 1974 and he led the extensive refurbishment and transformation of the brewery buildings into the new town museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1981. The museum was merged with the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in 2005, but still retained its separate buildings and indentity until it closed to the public for refurbishment in October 2010.
The museum's collections of around 20,000 items depict the human, social and natural history
of Bedford borough
. These include domestic, corporate, military and agricultural artifacts, as well as local crafts and industries.
Bedford Museum's archaeology collections include Palaeolithic flint tools and hand axes, as well as later artifacts from the Medieval times
. The museum also has an extensive numismatics
collection. The geology collections feature ammonite coiled shells and giant marine reptiles of the Jurassic period. Local birds, mammals, insects and plants are found in the museum's natural history collections.
The Art Gallery & Museum is scheduled to open in early 2013.
, which is described on the wiki entry for the Castle.
The history of the present buildings begins in 1804 with the building of a Hexagonal Militia Depot on a former Castle earthwork. The depot was later used for many other purposes including St. Agnes Elementary School and as kitchens for Castle Close, the Higgins family home. Since 1949 it has been used as a gallery space, an office, and an educational activites space. Since the 2008 Phase 1 redevelopment of the site it has been refurbished as a gallery space and will house the William Burges
collection on the Art Gallery & Museum's reopening.
In 1837, Charles Higgins (1789–1862) bought the lease for Castle Lane from the Duke of Bedford. He started by building the brewery which was completed in 1838.
Between 1840 and 1841 the building we now call Bedford Gallery was constructed, facing north on Castle Lane, opposite the Bunyan Meeting Church. Bedford Gallery was originally designed to be used as a clubhouse known as ‘Castle Rooms’, for supporters and members of the Whig party. Rate books from the time show that it was divided into 3 sections: a house, club rooms and a cellar. From 1848, the building was used by the Bunyan Meeting as a Sunday School, for Church gatherings and for teas. This lasted until the 1880s; listings show that it was then used by the Plymouth Brethren, a non-denominational Christian movement. In the early part of the 20th century it became a billiard hall. For some time during World War Two, the British Broadcasting Corporation music department is believed to have used Bedford Gallery as a rehearsal and recording studio. In August 1941 the BBC had evacuated several departments from London to Bedford; other local buildings used included the Corn Exchange, St. Pauls Church, the Co-Partners hall in the Queens Park area of the town, and the Great Hall of Bedford School.
After the war, the building returned to use as a billiard hall and table tennis saloon. In 1960, it was given over to the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and renamed Bedford Gallery; from then until 1973 it was a venue for exhibitions and events.
After being closed for over 30 years, Bedford Gallery was earmarked for a £2.5m refurbishment. The project, funded by Government and Bedford Borough Council, created a state-of-the-art venue that housed a programme of temporary exhibitions (including 'High Art, Low life — Toulouse Lautrec', a touring show from the British Museum) during the closure of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery from April 2009 until April 2011. In 2013 it will reopen as part of the new combined Art Gallery & Museum.
The lease required Higgins to build a house on the site; Castle Close, the house Charles built for himself and his family, was built in 1846 and occupied by members of the family until the early 1920s. By the end of the 1920s the property was in the possession of the Bedford Corporation (later Bedford Borough Council) and used for administrative purposes until the Will of Cecil Higgins proposed the housing of his collection there in 1941. The consdtions were accepted and the Museum opened in 1949.
Phase 2 of the redevelopment will unify three previously separate buildings, Bedford Gallery, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Bedford Museum, creating one flagship facility and uniting Bedford's unique collections beneath one roof. Building work began in August 2011. It is scheduled to take 11 months to complete building work, with a further six months to refit the new galleries.
Phase 2 of the redevelopment has been made possible through funding from Bedford Borough Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund
, Bedford Charity and several other sources.
The new facilty will include increased space for touring and temporary exhibitions, spaces for learning and activities, a new cafe and shop as well as new displays throughout. Among the new displays, nationally significant collections of work by the Victorian architect-designer William Burges
and the 20th century designer-printmaker Edward Bawden
will be housed in dedicated galleries.
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
and museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
in Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
, Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, run by Bedford Borough Council and the Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Collection.
Overview
The Art Gallery & Museum is situated within the Cultural Quarter which occupies the site of Bedford CastleBedford Castle
Bedford Castle was a large medieval castle in Bedford, England. Built after 1100 by Henry I, the castle played a prominent part in both the civil war of the Anarchy and the First Barons' War. The castle was significantly extended in stone, although the final plan of the castle remains uncertain...
to the east of the High Street on the north side of the River Great Ouse
River Great Ouse
The Great Ouse is a river in the east of England. At long, it is the fourth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The river has been important for navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows. Its course has been modified several times, with the first recorded being in...
Embankment. The Quarter includes the Castle Bailey gardens, the Castle Quay development of apartments, restaurants and shops, the Castle Mound, the John Bunyan Museum
John Bunyan Museum
John Bunyan Museum is a museum primarily dedicated to the life, times and works of John Bunyan. The museum is located in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England....
and The Art Gallery & Museum itself. The Art Gallery & Museum is scheduled to reopen in early 2013.
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
house The gallery holds collections of watercolours, prints, ceramics
Ceramic art
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
and furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
as well as two of the largest groupings of works outside London by William Burges
William Burges (architect)
William Burges was an English architect and designer. Amongst the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, Burges sought in his work an escape from 19th century industrialisation and a return to the values, architectural and social, of an imagined mediaeval England...
and Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden, CBE, RA was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture...
.
The Cecil Higgins Museum, as it was formerly known, opened its doors to the public on 25 July 1949. It was originally occupied the house built in 1846) as the home of Charles Higgins (1789–1862) and his family next to the Higgins & Sons Brewery.
The Museum had been created by the philanthropic brewer, Cecil Higgins (1856–1941) to house his collection of ceramics, glass and objets d’art for the benefit, interest and education of the inhabitants of, and visitors to, Bedford. Higgins realised that public museums were vulnerable, and to protect his collection he left a complex will, which stipulated how the museum was to be organised. He also left a trust fund, to be used for museum purposes, but principally for acquiring works of art (which included Decorative and Applied). While the collection of ceramics and glass was of high quality (each had been selected by James Kiddell of Sotheby’s), the collection lacked any notable paintings, save a few 18th century oils and a small collection of miniatures. The Art Gallery Board made the important decision to collect English watercolours in 1951. By the terms of Cecil Higgins’ will, all acquisitions have to be approved by a ‘recognised artistic authority such as ….the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
’ and in 1951, the then Director of the V&A, Sir Leigh Ashton, nominated Graham Reynolds, then Deputy Keeper of the Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design, to approve all watercolours and drawings for acquisition. Graham Reynolds remained an advisor until 1955 when he was succeeded by two authorities in their respective fields who were to shape and expand the collection significantly; Edward Croft-Murray (1907–1980) of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
and Ronald Alley (1926–99) of the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, from 1957.
The period between 1952 and 1964 were the most productive in terms of collecting watercolours. Over 500 were acquired in twelve years. The Gallery was able to achieve this by the availability of watercolours from private collections in the post-war years and the generosity of Cecil Higgins. Edward Croft-Murray and Ronald Alley each brought their knowledge, vision and taste to the growing collection. Their collecting was divided — Croft-Murray to works made pre-1850 and Alley to post-1850. The Gallery owes a great deal to their dedication and skill, for they were to develop one of the finest post-war collections outside London. That the collection is strong in the greatest painters of every generation is one thing, but that it is also representative of artists who were once popular and influential in their own day and less so at the time of acquisition, is due to their expert scholarship.
In 1971, the collecting policy switched to the decorative arts, with the purchase of a large number of pieces from the Handley-Read Collection. The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery now holds over 200 pieces from the collection of Charles Handley-Read
Charles Handley-Read
Charles Handley-Read was an architectural writer and collector and the first serious 20th century student of the work of William Burges, "a pioneer in Burges studies who was the first to assess the historical brillance of Burges as gesamtkunstwerk architect and designer."Handley-Read was born in...
and his wife Lavinia. Charles applied, in 1950, for a post at the Tate, after being rejected he reacted by ‘making a small museum of my own’. They began to form a collection of Victorian work at a time when few scholars and collectors took the period seriously, sometimes tracing the descendants of the architects and designers and buying directly from them. After initially making modest additions to his collection, a number of inheritances in 1964-5 meant that he could accelerate his buying. The Royal academy exhibition Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Art, The Handley-Read Collection in 1972 displayed their entire collection, sadly Charles and Lavinia did not live to see it, dying tragically in October and December 1972 consecutively.
From 1988, the focus returned to collecting prints, this time concentrating on the 20th century. The print collection now numbers over 400 pieces, including work by some of the finest British artists as well as internationally renowned figures such as Picasso, Lichtenstein and Dürer. The collection charts styles as well as print processes, from Whistler’s delicate etchings to Edward Bawden’s magnificent linocuts. The last major addition to the print collection was a generous donation in 2004 from the Scottish artist Alan Davie
Alan Davie
James Alan Davie is a Scottish painter and musician.He was born in Grangemouth and studied at Edinburgh College of Art in the late 1930s. An early exhibition of his work came through the Society of Scottish Artists...
(1920–Present) of over 70 prints, as well as 5 works in gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
.
A significant addition to the collection has been made in recent years by acquiring a number of works by Dora Carrington
Dora Carrington
Dora de Houghton Carrington , known generally as Carrington, was a British painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton Strachey....
who attended Bedford High Scool and lived in Bedford with her family at 1 Rothsay Gardens. Her family were still in Bedford while Carrington attended the Slade School of Art. The collection includes two major oils, 'Mrs Box' and 'Spanish Boy', as well as drawings of her brothers — Noel Carrington
Noel Carrington
Noel Carrington was an English book designer, editor and publisher. He was the originator of Puffin Books. His sister was the artist Dora Carrington. He was the author of books on design and on recreation and also worked for Oxford University Press and Penguin Books...
and Teddy Carrington — and Bedford Market.
In 2005, the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery merged with Bedford Museum, but retained its separate buildings and identity until it closed for refurbishment in 2007. While work on the Art Gallery did not commence straight away the adjoining Bedford Gallery underwent major refurbishment as Phase 1 of a much larger project, bringing the Grade II listed building back into use as a public space for the first time since the early 1970s. From April 2009 until April 2011 exhibitions of the Cecil Higgins Collections, alongside Bedford Museum collections and loaned exhibits, were held in Bedford Gallery. Following Phase 2 of the redevelopment project (see below), Bedford Gallery will be absorbed into the larger Gallery and Museum building, and accessed via the main entrance in the courtyard of the former brewery building.
Bedford Museum
Bedford Museum was formed in the 1960s from the collections of Bedford Modern School and Bedford Borough Council. It's social history, archaeology, natural history and ethnography collections tell the stories of the people and places that have shaped Bedford and its relationship with the wider world, from prehistory to the present day.In 1884, a solicitor called Charles Prichard, donated his private collection of fossils and minerals to Bedford Modern School, where he had formerly been a pupil. In addition he provided funds for the creation of a school museum to house the collections with an annual grant of £10 for its upkeep. Although additions were made to the original collections, oddities from all over the world began to feature as fathers and Old Boys travelled and took up positions in foreign lands. As a result the Museum became somewhat disrespectfully known as the ‘Old Curiosity Shop’.
The 1920s saw sweeping changes with the appointment of P.G. Langdon as Honorary Curator. Langdon’s aim was to reorganise the collections and establish them as a nucleus of a county museum. He acquired archaeological material including Roman and Saxon pottery and jewellery from Kempston
Kempston
Kempston is a town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. Once known as the largest village in England, Kempston is now a town with its own town council. It has a population of about 20,000, and together with Bedford, it forms an urban area with around 100,000 inhabitants, which is the...
, replaced the worst of the natural history with the J. Steele Elliot collection of Bedfordshire birds, mammals, nests and eggs and, in 1929, developed two new refurbished galleries. For the first time the displays were opened to the public on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, for an admission price of 6d. With this new high profile status the museum became recognised as one of the best school museums in England.
The next major figure to influence the Museum’s future was F.W. Kuhlicke, a local historian and heraldry specialist who was appointed Honorary Curator in 1933. He continued to develop the collections but by the 1950s the school needed more space for the expanding numbers and discussions took place with the Borough of Bedford to see whether the Borough could take on the public museum role. The opportunity arose to combine the school museum with the smaller collections held by the Borough of Bedford and in 1962 the newly established town museum opened in a former garage and showroom on the Embankment, with Kuhlicke as the first Honorary Curator.
This, however, was only a temporary arrangement while more substantial premises were sought. In the 1970s the former Higgins and Sons Castle Brewery buildings became available. Built in 1838, this red brick industrial building offered greater potential for public service, temporary exhibitions and storage for the ever increasing collections of north Bedfordshire. The first professional Curator, John Turner, was appointed in 1974 and he led the extensive refurbishment and transformation of the brewery buildings into the new town museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1981. The museum was merged with the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in 2005, but still retained its separate buildings and indentity until it closed to the public for refurbishment in October 2010.
The museum's collections of around 20,000 items depict the human, social and natural history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
of Bedford borough
Bedford (borough)
Bedford is a unitary authority with the status of a borough in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. Its council is based at Bedford, which is also the county town of Bedfordshire. The borough contains a single urban area, the 69th largest in the United Kingdom that comprises Bedford and...
. These include domestic, corporate, military and agricultural artifacts, as well as local crafts and industries.
Bedford Museum's archaeology collections include Palaeolithic flint tools and hand axes, as well as later artifacts from the Medieval times
Medieval Times
Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament is a family dinner theater featuring staged medieval-style games, sword-fighting, and jousting performed by a cast of 75 actors and 20 horses. Each location is housed in a replica 11th-century castle, with the exception of the Toronto location, which is housed...
. The museum also has an extensive numismatics
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
collection. The geology collections feature ammonite coiled shells and giant marine reptiles of the Jurassic period. Local birds, mammals, insects and plants are found in the museum's natural history collections.
The Art Gallery & Museum is scheduled to open in early 2013.
History of the Site
The site and its buildings have and a fascinating history with many different uses, not least of all the Siege of Bedford CastleBedford Castle
Bedford Castle was a large medieval castle in Bedford, England. Built after 1100 by Henry I, the castle played a prominent part in both the civil war of the Anarchy and the First Barons' War. The castle was significantly extended in stone, although the final plan of the castle remains uncertain...
, which is described on the wiki entry for the Castle.
The history of the present buildings begins in 1804 with the building of a Hexagonal Militia Depot on a former Castle earthwork. The depot was later used for many other purposes including St. Agnes Elementary School and as kitchens for Castle Close, the Higgins family home. Since 1949 it has been used as a gallery space, an office, and an educational activites space. Since the 2008 Phase 1 redevelopment of the site it has been refurbished as a gallery space and will house the William Burges
William Burges
William Burges may refer to:* William Burges * William Burges...
collection on the Art Gallery & Museum's reopening.
In 1837, Charles Higgins (1789–1862) bought the lease for Castle Lane from the Duke of Bedford. He started by building the brewery which was completed in 1838.
Between 1840 and 1841 the building we now call Bedford Gallery was constructed, facing north on Castle Lane, opposite the Bunyan Meeting Church. Bedford Gallery was originally designed to be used as a clubhouse known as ‘Castle Rooms’, for supporters and members of the Whig party. Rate books from the time show that it was divided into 3 sections: a house, club rooms and a cellar. From 1848, the building was used by the Bunyan Meeting as a Sunday School, for Church gatherings and for teas. This lasted until the 1880s; listings show that it was then used by the Plymouth Brethren, a non-denominational Christian movement. In the early part of the 20th century it became a billiard hall. For some time during World War Two, the British Broadcasting Corporation music department is believed to have used Bedford Gallery as a rehearsal and recording studio. In August 1941 the BBC had evacuated several departments from London to Bedford; other local buildings used included the Corn Exchange, St. Pauls Church, the Co-Partners hall in the Queens Park area of the town, and the Great Hall of Bedford School.
After the war, the building returned to use as a billiard hall and table tennis saloon. In 1960, it was given over to the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and renamed Bedford Gallery; from then until 1973 it was a venue for exhibitions and events.
After being closed for over 30 years, Bedford Gallery was earmarked for a £2.5m refurbishment. The project, funded by Government and Bedford Borough Council, created a state-of-the-art venue that housed a programme of temporary exhibitions (including 'High Art, Low life — Toulouse Lautrec', a touring show from the British Museum) during the closure of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery from April 2009 until April 2011. In 2013 it will reopen as part of the new combined Art Gallery & Museum.
The lease required Higgins to build a house on the site; Castle Close, the house Charles built for himself and his family, was built in 1846 and occupied by members of the family until the early 1920s. By the end of the 1920s the property was in the possession of the Bedford Corporation (later Bedford Borough Council) and used for administrative purposes until the Will of Cecil Higgins proposed the housing of his collection there in 1941. The consdtions were accepted and the Museum opened in 1949.
Redevelopment
The redevelopment of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum has been a phased process. Phase 1 was completed in April 2009 when Bedford Gallery was reopened. Bedford Gallery, a Grade II listed building and part of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum complex, had fallen into disuse in 1973. The reopening of Bedford Gallery as a venue for touring exhibitions, lectures and events gave an insight into what Phase 2 of the reevelopment process could offer.Phase 2 of the redevelopment will unify three previously separate buildings, Bedford Gallery, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Bedford Museum, creating one flagship facility and uniting Bedford's unique collections beneath one roof. Building work began in August 2011. It is scheduled to take 11 months to complete building work, with a further six months to refit the new galleries.
Phase 2 of the redevelopment has been made possible through funding from Bedford Borough Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
, Bedford Charity and several other sources.
The new facilty will include increased space for touring and temporary exhibitions, spaces for learning and activities, a new cafe and shop as well as new displays throughout. Among the new displays, nationally significant collections of work by the Victorian architect-designer William Burges
William Burges (architect)
William Burges was an English architect and designer. Amongst the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, Burges sought in his work an escape from 19th century industrialisation and a return to the values, architectural and social, of an imagined mediaeval England...
and the 20th century designer-printmaker Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden, CBE, RA was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture...
will be housed in dedicated galleries.
See also
- John Bunyan MuseumJohn Bunyan MuseumJohn Bunyan Museum is a museum primarily dedicated to the life, times and works of John Bunyan. The museum is located in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England....
— Museum dedicated to John BunyanJohn BunyanJohn Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...
, located just north of the Art Gallery & Museum, within the 'Cultural Quarter'.