25. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
6th April 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
31 March – 6 April 2025
The sun was out in force this this week and out in the garden (and the surrounding streets/parks) the tree blossoms looked striking against the blue Manchester sky. Once again we could be outside without a coat!
We started the week in style with a day of filming at the House with our three writers in resident. This footage which included individual interviews with Georgia, Guruleen and Princess will be used to promote our new exhibition (which will share the experiences and outputs of the writers) and will also be used as part of a legacy film we will create at the end of the project. I got to sit in on all the filming and took copious notes to help me put together some early ideas for the exhibition.
The exhibition itself (working title – I’ve never read Elizabeth Gaskell) will open at Manchester Central Library in June as part of the Festival of Libraries and then will come to the House from early July. On Wednesday I met with a freelance exhibition designer at Central Library to look at the space and how the exhibition will be presented. Inspired by the space (and the sunshine) I spent the rest of day coming up with ideas – that I then shared with the project steering group on Thursday- who then added and developed the ideas a step further (thank you Ivan, Rose & Duncan). Its all gaining momentum nicely and I’m really pleased how its going even if it means the next two months will be crazy busy.
We had two private tours through the House this week – one on Tuesday evening and a second on Saturday from Cross Street Chapel (William Gaskell’s church). Big thanks to Jane B, volunteer and trustee extraordinaire, for being the duty manager/key holder for these two out of hours tours. The group on Tuesday (Sale Rotary) posted a lovely review and photos on their Facebook page the following day.
Lynda set-up an Easter trail and craft activity ahead of the Easter holidays, and we had our first family through on Wednesday to test it (thumbs up given). A quiet but steady week ahead of the Easter holidays visitor wise and we had ‘just’ enough volunteers to get through on all days including Sunday.
On Wednesday evening Frank Galvin MBE gave a very special online tour about the restoration of the House – kicking-off our mini ‘house and home’ season of online events as part of our 10-year anniversary programme of events.
On Friday Jane and I spent most of the day interviewed for the new role of Hire & Events Manager. This person will replace Lucy after she leaves us next week for her next adventure. Thank you to all who applied and came for the interview,
Whilst this was going on Jane M made a start on cataloguing a new donation of books – which includes a few first editions which was very exciting. Just wish I had more time to sit and look through them all.
Sunday was fairly good. Not quite as busy as previous Sunday’s but we/I can’t complain. And I had a great team of volunteers to work with which always makes working on a Sunday so much easier!
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
