Bishop Auckland
At the end of August, John’s parents along with his brother and sister-in-law came up for little mini-vacation. They rented a place in Durham and touristed for a couple of days and then on Friday night we headed over, it being a short train ride away.
On the Saturday we visited Bishop Auckland, which previously I had only passed through – as it has a train station and a bus station that connects it to Durham and Darlington respectively and is therefore a convenient meeting point for Alissa and Andrew to collect me when we do craft fairs in that neck of the woods. Consequently I’ve only ever seen too early or too late for most the businesses and tourist attractions to be open, and only had time to explore one rather run-down street while waiting for my bus. Granted that street has an excellent charity shop, but the general impression was of a small town down on its luck but trying to reinvent itself with a few shiny new attractions.
On a Saturday this reinvention is much more obvious, and frankly quite impressive. Bishop Auckland used to be quite the place, first due to its bishops and later again during the industrial revolution and the coal mining boom. Of course we know how that went, and the past hundred years have not been kind to it. But in the last few years there has been a big investment in building the tourism sector, through the Auckland Project, and from what we saw they’re doing an excellent job.
We started with the Spanish Gallery, which is a collection of Spanish siglo the oro art, a seemingly random theme for a museum at this location, but connected to the bishops. Its a beautiful new museum, the collection is heavy on the religious themes naturally, and some of the curation a bit odd, but overall it is impressive and I appreciated that all the labels were bilingual. The best part was the top floor though, which has facsimiles and plaster castings of sculptures and wall decorations, so you can touch and feel the tiles and geometric reliefs.
After that we went to Auckland Castle, where in addition to the chapel and main rooms, has done up several smaller private rooms to match the period during which a particular bishop would have occupied them. Also attached is the recently opened Faith Museum, which is a logical addition given the nature of the castle, but I was a bit hesistant to pop into. However it is a quite enjoyable journey through six millenia of belief in the British isles, with some fascinating objects and a fair diversity of topics. At the end of the museum proper there were a variety of art exhibits including a striking art installation.
Finally we had a lovely wander throught the gardens in the sunshine.