Blogs & News

: “My Dear Mr Ruskin….” Friendship, Inspiration and Scandal.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s House explores the friendship between the Gaskell family and John Ruskin in this exhibition as part of The Ruskin Bicentenary on 2019. Often at odds with their contemporaries, John Ruskin and Elizabeth Gaskell were controversial writers, often sharing the same ideals. Elizabeth openly took sides when Ruskin’s wife, Effie, left him, commenting in a letter that “…She really is very close to a charming character; if she had had the small pox she would have been

: Easter Events

Join us for family fun at the House this Easter, with Easter egg trails, Easter crafts, visits from our Victorian servants, and more throughout the Easter holidays. "There was Easter proper, which always required new clothing of some kind, for fear of certain consequences from little birds, who were supposed to resent the impiety of those who do not wear some new article of dress on Easter-day…So piety demanded a new bonnet, or a new gown" Elizabeth Gaskell,

: The Raj & Beyond.

  ‘Raj: kingdom, used in twentieth century chiefly to denote British rule in India from 1858 to 1947, hence rajah—ruler; and maharajah—great ruler.’ Set in the waning days of British colonialism, Burmese Days is ‘a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj.’ It describes ‘corruption and imperial bigotry’ in a society where, ‘after all, natives were natives—interesting, no doubt, but finally...an inferior people’. Then we shall turn to the classic prize-winning (Booker of Bookers) novel of