44. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
5th September 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
1-5 September 2025
Autumn is officially here – or at least our autumnal photos and content are doing very well – and, despite the increased rainfall in Manchester, we had a pretty decent week on the visitor and volunteer front. Wednesday was quietish, but Thursday was positively overflowing with super keen visitors (including a group of 27 Japanese visitors) and the spend in the Tea Room was possibly one of the best days we’ve had in years. We had quite a few ‘pilgrims’ visitors as they call themselves (which we love) who have either been joining our online events for a while and are visiting for the first time, or, who are massive Elizabeth Gaskell fans and visiting for the first time. Either way it’s always a joy speaking to these visitors.
And of course visitor spend and visits help our dwindling coffers, drained further last week by the website issues. The website looks, today at least, back to normal, but this has taken such a lot of time and I’m sure we will discover other hiccups or errors (or have them pointed out to us) in the coming weeks/days. We also had some disappointing news about a possible tenant for the Coachhouse who we had hoped to secure so that space is still available.
We started the week, unusually, with a large wedding on Monday, meaning it was a busy weekend for Gaby and Ellie (and volunteers) with weddings on Friday and Monday plus the set-up the day before and clear-up the day after. Plus Sunday was busy as well so I think everyone was a little frazzled by mid-week.
We had more new stock for the shop arrive and Katy created some new retail displays to take us into autumn and Halloween. Elizabeth’s Gothic Tales and Ghost Stories were our best-selling books in August and we now have some new copies of Lois the Witch and The Old Nurse’s Story on sale (on the online shop as well). I really like both these short stories, although I must admit I can’t re-read Lois the Witch because it makes me so angry and sad.
Speaking of new books; excitingly I started pulling together and drafting the copy for a book we are going to produce featuring the work of our writers in residence. I had to learn some publishing technical terms very quickly to get up to speed on the jargon! I was also invited to write an article for the British Association of Victorian Studies about the House, so I started mulling over that whilst procrastinating, but eventually succumbing, to working on another two funding applications.
Beyond the walls, UNESCO Manchester City of Literature shared a lovely reel about the House and the Manchester Literature map, we had some other lovely reviews on social media and the invites for the 2026 Lit Houses Conference went out which we are delighted to be hosting this year.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
