The Ramsbottom Heritage Society has acquired a large number of painting, photographs and historical documents since it was formed in 1987. These have been held in storage, with limited space in the Heritage Gallery to display them. We decided that they should be displayed to the public over 2 days, Saturday 5th October from 12-4 p.m and Sunday 6th October from 11 – 3 p.m at Ramsbottom Civic Hall.
Entry is free, and a catalogue will be available to buy, which will describe each painting or photo
The layout around the hall will be in themes based on the historic areas of Ramsbottom, such as Station and Surrounding area, Bridge Street, Carr Street, The Local Towers, Bolton Road West, Dundee Lane, Nuttall, Summerseat and Churches
The oldest paintings are from the 1800s, and the newest will be a live painting of the exhibition by Stuart Barkley, a local artist, who will be attending on SUNDAY only, and will donate his painting to the Society
Examples are
Nuttall Hall. 1844 Shows the river bridge and Grant’s Tower.
Written on the back of the painting “Nuttall Hall near Bury, Lancashire. The residence of John Grant Esq. Drawn by R.D. Wittenbury 1844”
Label on the back “John Slack, Carver, Gilder and Ornamentalist, Looking Glass, Window Cornice & Picture Frame Manufacturer. 17 Lever Street, Piccadilly, Manchester. (Looking glasses resilvered and oil paintings restored)”. Purchased by the RHS September 2014.
St Andrew’s Church. Watercolour, early to mid 19th Purchased at the same time as Nuttall Hall watercolour, September 2014, so is thought to be by the same artist, R.D. Whittenbury.
Reverse of painting
Label 1 – “Coat of arms of the Grants. Date 1832 St Andrew’s Church, Ramsbottom. Erected by the Late W Grant Esq of Springside.”
Label 2 – “John Slack, Carver, Gilder and Ornamentalist, Looking Glass, Window Cornice & Picture Frame Manufacturer. 17 Lever Street, Piccadilly, Manchester (Looking glasses resilvered and oil paintings restored)”
Hand written on the paper covering the back “Mr F. Lawson 1875”
Junction of Dundee Lane with Bolton St as it was in the 1920’s. Painted by Joe Barlow. Date not known, but before the Old Dun Horse extended to the corner of Dundee Lane. Joe Barlow’s description on the back of the painting.
“This picture represents the day of the Annual Horse fair at Turton, when ‘OLD AB’ (Abraham Duckworth) ran a horse drawn waggonette to the Fair. The figure left foreground is “John Willie”, noted for his daily walk from Turn Village to Tottington for a piece of currant cake. (Here he has been chased out of Bill Bancroft’s shop by Bill (not shown) holding a cleaver. John Willie was often seen holding a red hankie to his ever dripping nose. The stout gentleman (right foreground) represents James Hulton who used to be the Agent for the Grants and lived at that time at Nuttall, at the back of Nuttall Farm, facing Starling Street (long since demolished)”.
When the pub was rebuilt it took over Bill Barcroft’s shop. The Old Dun Horse is now right on the corner of Dundee Lane and Bolton Street, ie it has been extended and has moved. If you closed a pub to renovate it you had to get a new licence, so they kept the Old Dun Horse open while the work was carried out. They built the new front inside the original corner shop while the pub was still in use.
