Manchester Massive: an unexpected commission

As a result of my special Cotswold Preview of the Country House Colouring Book drawings, I got a commission and a very exciting one!

My client Michelle started life in Lancashire and is a supporter of the National Trust. She loves architecture and has wanted to invest in a piece of architectural art showcasing great Lancashire houses for her Cotswold home. Lancashire is very special for my client, 'both my heart & soul are in Lancashire, I'm just here' she movingly recalled in our 1st meeting at the studio. I knew instantly that this commission was deeply personal. I was sad to learn that Michelle's Polish parents had to start a new life in Bolton during the war in order to flee Nazi Germany, their new life in northern England revolved around working in the Bolton Cotton Mills, then still a thriving industry that began in the 14th century.

Going through endless books in the studio, I showed Michelle examples of embroidered textiles found in collections of Lancashire properties. I told Michelle that some of my favourite embroidered textiles come from Eastern Europe and that I wondered if her Polish mother had chosen Bolton for perhaps her own love for embroidery. Michelle recalled her mother embroidering rather well and believed it was a great influence for her move to Bolton. We agreed that although this piece of work ought to be more architectural than illustrative, it would be good to include a small reference to the embroidery I discover in the Lancashire collections, a wonderful tribute to Michelle's Polish roots.

Now I was aware that this commission was more than just depicting a great building and telling its story; it had to represent a family seeking refuge accross Europe, the industrial revolution, and it must tell the tale of the buildings once inhabited by textile entrepreneurs.

It became clear that this work was going to be geographical as well as architectural.

(Fig 1)

Observing a map of Lancashire, I identified buildings that overlooked Bolton, they were Gawthorpe Hall, Turton Tower, Smithills Hall and Hall i' th' Wood (Fig 1). I was aware of Gawthorpe Hall and its fine collection of embroidered textiles, I drew a detail of a persian rug for The Country House Colouring Book. Gawthorpe is a National Trust property built by the Shuttleworth family and thought to have been designed by Elizabethan Robert Smythson, architect of great houses such as Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire. That was my first port of call on my property list to research but it's being restored and is covered in scaffolding so I wouldn't have got much out of it, pity. I was invited to visit by the assistant curator in 2016 though, really looking forward to it!

The three remaining houses, Smithills, Turton and Hall i' th' Wood are positioned to the north;

Turton is furthest to the north, then Smithalls and ever so slightly more south east is Hall i' th' Wood. I read that all three also look down over Bolton centre, its important to me that I represent their position to Bolton Town and in turn the view each has of Bolton, reflective of the awareness and mutual recognition entrepreneur and factory worker going about their day once had.

Without the revolutionary cotton industry we wouldn't have the incredible 13th-16th century part-timber, part-stone houses such as these; Bolton textile industrialists thankfully used their wealthwisely and with their hearty, down-to-earth northern traits, were it seems, happy to preserve their homes in a more or less original state, never feeling the need to radically alter, obviously being quite happy to 'make-do'. I believe we owe it to this stoic Lancashire attitude, for without it we would not have rare architectural gems like the ones in question now preserved by the Town Council, all sitting high above busy Bolton.

The industrial town, with its overall design & planning, could not be more a contrast in style to that of the old grand houses that are in short reach of it. Nowadays these houses are in fact more wrapped-up by the growth of suburbia, Turton and Hall i' th' Wood most certainly go unnoticed, hidden by trees and outnumbered by cul de sacs, the onset of a flourishing industrial 20th c Manchester. Quite rightly, the importance of providing leafier habitats for workers and their families became more important than a quiet onlooking, grand estate,

So interesting this commission had become, it was very clear that it would obtain more narrative than just one property or indeed like any other I'd produced before. I'm to record industry, architecture, design, geography, planning, development and at equal measure, the hope and opportunity Bolton burst for centuries. Now I was itching to go to Bolton to begin my research; On a Monday I booked my

B & B, typed up a two-day schedule, grabbed my best bud Rosie, borrowed a reliable car and off I went on the Wednesday 'oop-north.'

AJ