Origins of the Site

Mid-eighteenth century Kendal

Abbot Hall and its Occupants

Abbot Hall Art Gallery

At some time during the Middle Ages, a dwelling - soon known as Abbot Hall - was erected for the Abbot near the church. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1535-9), this building passed into secular hands. In 1588, Myles Philipson gave part of the land belonging to Abbot Hall, with a house standing on it, as a site for a new building for Kendal Grammar School (now partly used by the Museum of Lakeland Life). From then until the middle of the eighteenth century, the names of various families, including Stirzaker, Baitman, Wood, Dixon, Harrison, and Benson occur in Kendal parish registers as 'of Abbot Hall'.

The new house, beautifully set amongst lawns and trees in the best eighteenth-century manner, is said to have cost £8,000. The tree-lined path along the banks of the Kent is still known as ColonelÕs Walk. In 1762, Colonel George Wilson married a Lancaster heiress, Ann Sibyle Harrison: a daughter was born in 1766. It has been suggested that grief at this only childÕs death in 1773 drove the Wilsons from the new house, but the facts are otherwise, because in December 1770 Abbot Hall was let furnished for £210 p.a. to Colonel WilsonÕs cousin, Sir Michael le Fleming, Bart., of Rydal Hall.

The Wilsons owned the property for more than seventy years, though Christopher wondered about selling it after 1822, when he commissioned his fellow Kendalian, George Webster, to design a new house on the lovely Rigmaden estate, near Kirkby Lonsdale. After Christopher WilsonÕs death in 1845, Abbot Hall became the familyÕs dower house. It was later let to Edmund Harrison; the 1871 census return records that William Mark, brewer, was the tenant.

In 1875, William Wilson, one of ChristopherÕs younger sons, sold Abbot Hall for £3,000 to Messrs. Isaac Whitwell Wilson, Frank Wilson, Thomas Crewdson Wilson and Theodore Wilson. Five years later they sold it for £4,350 to Mr Edward Crewdson, banker, of Kendal. In 1891, Mr Harry Arnold of Kendal and Mr Christopher Fell, timber merchant, of Troutbeck purchased the property for £3,000. They sold Abbot Hall in 1897 to Kendal Corporation for £3,750, of which the directors of Kendal Savings Bank contributed £2,500 Ôin consideration of the surroundings being made available for the publicÕ.

The grounds became a public park which has provided enjoyment ever since, but the house was more of a problem, because while members of the Corporation dreamt of establishing a centre for the arts, money was never forthcoming. For half a century, the house was virtually uninhabited, though some of the downstairs rooms were used as a nursery school during both World Wars. The oval lawn was the site of KendalÕs VE Day celebrations.

In 1957, on receipt of a favourable report, the Lake District Art Gallery Trust, now the Lakeland Arts Trust, was formed to raise funds for the restoration and conversion, by the generosity of the F. C. Scott Charitable Trust and the Provincial Insurance Company, and others. The roof, riddled with woodworm and dry rot, had to be completely removed, and part of the southern wall had to be underpinned owing to subsidence, but the ground floor was finally restored to its original eighteenth-century splendour and the upper storey converted into modern galleries with top lighting.

No collection existed on which to base the furnishing of Abbot Hall: it was decided to acquire high quality items of local origin, such as works by the portrait painters George Romney and Daniel Gardner (who were patronised by the eighteenth-century occupants), and furniture by Gillows of Lancaster. Magnificent gifts and generous loans have contributed to the collection of objets d'art. It was further decided to extend Abbot HallÕs history of patronage into the twentieth century by exhibiting modern work and building up a collection of contemporary art.

On 28 September 1962, H.R.H. The Princess Margaret, accompanied by Lord Snowdon, opened Abbot Hall to the public. Within the next decade, it became apparent that more display and storage space was required for the rapidly expanding collections and increasing number of exhibitions. In 1971 an appeal was launched for the conversion of the South Wing into additional gallery space. Work commenced in the summer of 1973, and reached completion in the spring of 1974 when the new gallery was opened.

Over the past ten years both the collections and the reputation of the exhibition programme have continued to grow. Today Abbot Hall has a very fine collection of British Art, including important key works by such artists as Romney, Turner, Ruskin, Ben Nicholson, Frank Auerbach and Tony Bevan. In recent years exhibitions of national importance have been shown at Abbot Hall with Lucian Freud in 1996, Bridget Riley in 1998/9, Paula Rego in 2001, Stanley Spencer in 2002, Euan Uglow in 2003 and Walter Richard Sickert in 2004.

In 1999 the Trust purchased Blackwell, a superb Arts and Crafts Movement house by M H Ballie Scott overlooking Lake Windermere. This was after an appeal that raised almost £850,000 in less than a year and a further grant of £2.252 million by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Blackwell, now open to the public, greatly enhances the facilities of the Trust and forms one of the most exciting exhibition venues in the country. Our visitors can explore the interaction between architecture, fine art and crafts in two important buildings situated in one of the most beautiful parts of Britain.