My family, the Dukinfield Darbishires
Sascha Roos, a member of the Dukinfield Darbishire family - who were great friends of the Gaskells - visited the House recently and has written this fascinating blog about her family connections with the Gaskells... About my family, the Dukinfield Darbishires, or
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Another historic house – visiting the Watts Gallery – Artists Village
I recently visited the Watts Gallery - Artists Village, primarily to see their wonderful exhibition 'Christina Rossetti : Vision and Verse', but my Elizabeth Gaskell antennae are are always finely tuned and were twitching! In 1891,the Victorian artist George Frederic Watts moved
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Music lessons from Mr Hallé
It's 200 years years since Charles Hallé, who was to become one of the most celebrated conductors on Victorian England ( and who would have an orchestra named after him! ) ,was born in what is now Germany. As a young man he
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Isabella Beeton: managing Household Commotion!
Isabella Beeton's A Book of Household Management was published in 1861 and we have a copy of it in the dining room underneath the portrait of Mrs Dimmock, William Gaskell's mother. The recipes in the book draw on the cookery column Isabella
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Knowing John Ruskin
This is Charles Eliot Norton writing to his mother, Mrs Andrews Norton, on July 2 1857 'One day as we were travelling in Italy, Mrs Gaskell and her daughters and I were talking about the books we would choose if we were
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