Aerial shot of Haworth Art Gallery

Haworth Art Gallery was formerly known as ‘Hollins Hill House’, the home of Cotton Manufacturer William Haworth and his sister Anne and represents the riches born from the local textile industry. A Grade II listed building, Haworth Art Gallery is a country style Arts and Crafts house built by architect Walter Brierley in 1909 who was also known as the ‘Northern Lutyens’. Brierley worked closely with leading Arts and Crafts figures such as the gardener Gertrude Jekyll and the ornamental plasterer George Bankart.

Front view of Haworth Art Gallery

Outwardly the house is built of sandstone from local quarries and has Jacobean style almost symmetrical wings either side of the entrance which features twelve ornamental grotesques on top of the balcony. Internally the prominent oak staircase is hand crafted and features a stained glass window including a coat-of-arms for Accrington and Lancashire as well as a monogram of William Haworth firmly rooting it in place. The window also includes hand painted glass references to the cotton trade the family fortune was built on. There is extensive oak panelling throughout the ground floor of the house and the Billiard room features wood carvings depicting acorns after the name of the town, Lancashire roses and the flora and fauna from the area. The same motifs are included in two ornate plaster ceilings created by George Bankart.

Wooden acorn

Details of plasterwork

The house was bequeathed to the people of Accrington through Accrington Corporation, now Hyndburn Borough Council (HBC) in 1920 and opened as the town’s Art Gallery in 1921. The bequest also included 9 acres of gardens, a Stables and Motor House with a rare above-ground petrol store, a potting shed and an orangery which no longer exists.

Most of the collections we have at Haworth Art Gallery are made up of gifts and bequests by local people the most notable ones are the transfer of paintings collected by Accrington District Council previously housed in Accrington’s Mechanics Institute, the Haworth Bequest of Haworth Art Gallery and a collection of mainly Victorian paintings and ceramics, 1920, the Nuttall Bequest of mainly Victorian oil and watercolour paintings, 1924-5, and the Hitchon gift of mainly Victorian oil and watercolour paintings, 1946.

Significant works have been added over the years including works by Accrington born artists Gerard de Rose, Leslie Duxbury and John Virtue.

Haworth Park

Autumnal view of Haworth Park from the house

Haworth Park is formerly the grounds of ‘Hollins Hill’ built for William Haworth between 1907 and 1909 by Walter Brierley also known as the ‘Northern Lutyens’. Built in the Arts and Crafts style, on the outskirts of the industrial cotton town Accrington, the grounds were arranged in rooms consisting of a rose garden, herbaceous borders, woodland areas, a pond and kitchen gardens which led up from the main road to the house and overlook Hambledon Hill. Set in the West Pennine Moors, Haworth Park was designed by Simeon Marshall who previously worked as a gardener for the famous James Backhouse and Sons Nursery of York and formed a group of Arts and Crafts garden designers such as Gertrude Jekyll, and George Dillistone who worked with Walter Brierley. Marshall was also responsible for the garden design at Thornbridge Hall, Derbyshire.

Haworth Park still remains complete with changes made to the gardens in line with conventional municipal parks. The kitchen garden is now a car park, the herbaceous borders now no longer contain colourful perennials, the pond has been filled-in and the rows of rhododendrons have been removed due to disease.