In collaboration with local and regional artists, Abbot Hall Coffee House hosts a programme of selling exhibitions throughout the year. Entry to Coffee House exhibitions is FREE

Henry Herbert (1858-1928)
12 January - 17 April 2012
Henry Herbert moved to Bowness in the 1880s and worked for the local photographer JW Brunskill in Lake Road before setting up on his own. He recorded many important local events including the celebrations for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 and the Great Frost of 1895, when Windermere was covered by nine inches of ice for several weeks. These prints from glass negatives held in the archives of the Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry, allow an intriguing glimpse into life around Windermere in the late nineteenth century.

Joseph Hardman (1893-1972)
18 April - 19 July 2012
Joseph Hardman was born in Radcliffe, near Manchester. He started work in a factory when he was a child, but moved to Kendal in 1911. After joining the local photographic society, his interest in photography grew, and for the last thirty years of his life he travelled to every part of the Lake District by taxi as a freelance photographer. His images were widely printed in the local press and have recorded a way of life that was fast disappearing by the mid-twentieth century.