richardgregory48
Bowes Museum
Deep in County Durham, overlooking the undulating hills of Cumbria and North Yorkshire sits a large and imposing French chateau. With its pale, golden stone and deep lead roof it looks as if it has been lifted by a giant hand from the Tuileries in Paris and set down in an alien landscape. It is the result of a love story and a passion for collecting that bordered on obsession.
The man who gave his name to the treasure house within the distinctively French exterior is John Bowes, a wealthy Durham landowner, horse breeder and coal magnate who never threw off the taint of his illegitimacy. In 1848 he moved to Paris where he bought a theatre and met the woman who was to be the love of his life, an actress called Josephine Chevalier. Bowes rescued her from a life treading the boards, which is perhaps just as well; one waspish critic described her as having, ‘an impossible voice, impossible figure and ... sings down her nose.”
She shared with Bowes his love of fine art and collecting; together they dreamt up the idea of creating a museum at Barnard Castle in his native Teesdale. And that is what makes the place so unusual. It’s not a former stately home that has been adapted to display the possessions of an aristocratic family no longer able to afford the inheritance tax. It is purpose built to house a collection that was amassed with one idea in mind: to create a place where the local people of County Durham could come to marvel at some of the world’s finest treasures.
Bowes Museum
Deep in County Durham, overlooking the undulating hills of Cumbria and North Yorkshire sits a large and imposing French chateau. With its pale, golden stone and deep lead roof it looks as if it has been lifted by a giant hand from the Tuileries in Paris and set down in an alien landscape. It is the result of a love story and a passion for collecting that bordered on obsession.
The man who gave his name to the treasure house within the distinctively French exterior is John Bowes, a wealthy Durham landowner, horse breeder and coal magnate who never threw off the taint of his illegitimacy. In 1848 he moved to Paris where he bought a theatre and met the woman who was to be the love of his life, an actress called Josephine Chevalier. Bowes rescued her from a life treading the boards, which is perhaps just as well; one waspish critic described her as having, ‘an impossible voice, impossible figure and ... sings down her nose.”
She shared with Bowes his love of fine art and collecting; together they dreamt up the idea of creating a museum at Barnard Castle in his native Teesdale. And that is what makes the place so unusual. It’s not a former stately home that has been adapted to display the possessions of an aristocratic family no longer able to afford the inheritance tax. It is purpose built to house a collection that was amassed with one idea in mind: to create a place where the local people of County Durham could come to marvel at some of the world’s finest treasures.