Salford Museum and Art Gallery facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Salford Museum and Art Gallery

Salford Museum and Art Gallery
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Established	1850; 175 years ago (1850)
Location	Peel Park, Salford, Greater Manchester
Public transit access	Salford Crescent

The Salford Museum and Art Gallery is a cool place in Peel Park, Salford, Greater Manchester. It first opened its doors in November 1850. Back then, it was called the Royal Museum and Public Library. This museum and art gallery shows off the history of Salford. It also features amazing art and buildings from the Victorian era, which was a long time ago!

How the Museum Started

The museum began with a big idea! People bought the Lark Hill estate and its mansion. This was done with money collected from the public. In November 1850, it opened as Peel Park and the Royal Museum and Public Library.

Building the Museum

In 1874, Edward Langworthy, a former mayor of Salford, helped the museum a lot. He left £10,000 to the museum when he passed away. This money was used to build a new part called the Langworthy Wing. This wing connected the north and south parts of the building. It had three floors and was made of brick and stone. Today, this part is where visitors enter the museum.

Over the years, more and more people loved visiting the museum. But in 1936, the original building, Lark Hill Mansion, was found to be unsafe. It had to be taken down because it was falling apart.

A New Look for the Museum

A new part of the museum was built. It took two years to finish and opened in 1938. This new section was designed to look just like the Langworthy Wing. It was quite special because it copied an older style of building. This made the museum look like it had grown slowly over time. It has a consistent look, even though different architects worked on it.

When the museum first opened, over 160,000 people visited in the first year! They came to see old statues, paintings, and items from ancient Egypt and other places. The number of visitors kept growing. In just five years, 1.6 million people had visited!

The Museum's Design

Salford Museum and Art Gallery is noted for its Italianate Renaissance architecture

The Salford Museum and Art Gallery is a special building. It has strong stone pillars and fancy stone designs both inside and out. The building's look has changed over 200 years, but it all fits together nicely.

Special Features

Some parts of the museum are very unique. The galleries in the north and south wings have skylights at the top. These are some of the earliest examples of this type of design. The galleries were built in a Renaissance style. The architects, Travis & Mangnall, were known for this graceful Italian style. This style was popular for business buildings in Manchester back then.

The museum is right in the middle of the University of Salford. It is surrounded by other important buildings for the city and for learning. The museum is one of the oldest public buildings in the area. It helped decide where other important buildings would be placed.

What You Can See Inside

The Salford Museum has many interesting collections.

Art Collection

You can find paintings by famous artists in the Salford collection. Some of these artists include Christian Ludwig Bokelmann, Charles Landseer, Arthur Perigal, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, William Bruce Ellis Ranken, and Thomas Henry Illidge.

The museum used to have over 400 artworks by a painter from Salford named L. S. Lowry. These paintings were collected starting in 1930. However, they were moved to The Lowry, a new art gallery built in Salford Quays. The Lowry opened in 2000.

• Selected works on display
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  Bokelmann: The Gambler

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  Landseer: Aesop Composing His Fables

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  Perigal: A Fancy Dress Ball, Manchester

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  Portrait of Joshua Routledge

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  Illidge: portrait of Lord Stanley

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  Calderon - The Queen of the Tournament

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  Ranken: Head of a Young Woman

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  Ranken: Portrait of an amateur boxer

Lark Hill Place

Lark Hill Place, a re-creation of a Victorian street inside Salford Museum

On the ground floor of the museum, there is a special exhibit called Lark Hill Place. It is like stepping back in time! It's a re-creation of a typical street from the Victorian era.

A Street from the Past

The museum built this street using real shop fronts. These fronts were saved and fixed up in 1957. At that time, many old shops and houses in Salford were being torn down to build new things. The museum saved these pieces of history.

Inside the shops, you can see furniture and objects from the Victorian period. They show how people lived and used things back then. You can even hear sounds that make it feel like a winter evening from that time. Saving Lark Hill Place was a very early effort to protect old buildings. This was before it became popular to save historic places during fast city growth.

See also

• Listed buildings in Salford, Greater Manchester