The Storey, formerly the Storey Institute, is a multi-purpose building located at the corner of Meeting House Lane and Castle Hill in
Lancaster,
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
, England. Its main part is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...
as a designated Grade II
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
,
with its back entrance being listed separately, also at Grade II.
History
The building was constructed between 1887 and 1891 as a replacement for the Lancaster Mechanic's Institute, to commemorate
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
's
Golden Jubilee
A golden jubilee marks a 50th anniversary. It variously is applied to people, events, and nations.
Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, golden jubilee refers the 50th anniversary year of the separation from Pakistan and is called in Bengali ''"সু ...
. It was paid for by Thomas Storey, a local businessman who had been mayor in the year of the Jubilee, and was renamed the Storey Institute in his honour in 1891. Its purpose was "the promotion of art, science, literature, and technical instruction". The building was designed by the architects
Paley, Austin and Paley
Sharpe, Paley and Austin are the surnames of architects who practised in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, between 1835 and 1946, working either alone or in partnership. The full names of the principals in their practice, which went under vario ...
whose office stood nearby. It contained a reading room, a library, a lecture room, a laboratory, a music room, a picture gallery, a school of art, and accommodation for a caretaker. The building cost about £12,000 (equivalent to £ in ). In 1906–08 it was extended to commemorate the accession of
Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...
. This was designed by the successors in the architectural practice,
Austin and Paley
Sharpe, Paley and Austin are the surnames of architects who practised in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, between 1835 and 1946, working either alone or in partnership. The full names of the principals in their practice, which went under vario ...
, to provide more rooms for teaching. Thomas Storey's son,
Herbert
Herbert may refer to:
People Individuals
* Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert
Name
* Herbert (given name)
* Herbert (surname)
Places Antarctica
* Herbert Mountains, Coats Land
* Herbert Sound, Graham Land
Australia
* Herbert ...
, paid £10,000 towards the cost of the extension, which almost doubled the size of the building.
Over the years, the building has been housed the City Art Gallery, the public library, a girls’ grammar school, and from the 1950s to 1982, Lancaster College of Art.
The opening art exhibition, held in 1889, included paintings by
Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to:
Places
* Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England
** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich
* Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England
** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency)
* Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...
,
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
, and
Canaletto
Giovanni Antonio Canal (18 October 1697 – 19 April 1768), commonly known as Canaletto (), was an Italian painter from the Republic of Venice, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school.
Painter of city views or ...
. The art collection included paintings by local artists including
Samuel John "Lamorna" Birch and
William Hoggatt. In the 1960s there were touring exhibitions of works by
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
, and
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
.
The art collection was moved in 1968 to
Lancaster City Museum
Lancaster City Museum is a museum in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. It is housed in the former Lancaster Town Hall building in Market Square.
History
The Old Town Hall building in which the museum is housed is recorded in the National Herit ...
.
By the 1980s the gallery was rarely used, but in 1991 a group of local artists re-established it as th
Storey Gallery and delivered a continuous programme of over 100 exhibitions of contemporary art until 2013. The exhibition programme included one-person shows by
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy (born 26 July 1956) is an English sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings.
Early life
Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire on 26 J ...
,
Gillian Ayres
Gillian Ayres (3 February 1930 – 11 April 2018) was an English painter. She is best known for abstract painting and printmaking using vibrant colours, which earned her a Turner Prize nomination.
Early life and education
Gillian Ayres was bo ...
,
Basil Beattie
Basil Beattie RA (born 1935) is a British artist, whose work revolves around abstraction and is known for its emotive and gestural forms.
Born in West Hartlepool, County Durham, Beattie attended the West Hartlepool College of Art from 1950 until ...
, Michael Brennand-Wood,
Simon Callery,
Anthony Green,
Albert Irvin,
Michael Kenny,
Sophie Ryder, and
Richard Wilson, plus touring exhibitions from Japan, Spain, and Italy, and a variety of curated group shows. In 1998 the walled gardens behind the institute were laid out as an art work, ''The Tasting Garden'', by
Mark Dion
Mark Dion (born August 28, 1961) is an American conceptual artist best known for his use of scientific presentations in his installations. His work examines the manner in which prevalent ideologies and institutions influence our understanding ...
.
In the early 21st century the institute was converted into a multi-use building by
Lancaster City Council
The City of Lancaster () is a local government district of Lancashire, England, with the status of a city and non-metropolitan district. It is named after its largest settlement, Lancaster, but covers a far larger area, which includes the tow ...
, and was renamed The Storey. It provided accommodation for small businesses, a café, galleries and exhibitions areas, workshops, and an information centre.
The architects were Mason Gillibrand Architects of Caton.
Architecture
Main building
The building is constructed in
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
with
slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
roofs, and is in
Jacobean Revival
The Jacobethan or Jacobean Revival architectural style is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance (15 ...
style. It has façades on two fronts, with a
turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
on the corner. The turret is octagonal, with a lead dome surmounted by a spirelet. The building is in two storeys plus attics, above which are
gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
s, some shaped and some segmental. Inside the building, on the first floor, is a curved window containing stained glass designed by Jowett of
Shrigley and Hunt
Shrigley and Hunt was an English firm which produced stained-glass windows and art tiles.
History
The business began in the 1750s when Shrigley's was a painting, carving and gilding firm in Lancaster, Lancashire.
In 1868, control of Shrigley' ...
depicting representations of the arts. Also on this floor is a top-lit exhibition gallery.
[
]
Back entrance
This consists of a portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...
in Roman Doric style with two columns supporting a triglyph
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
and a cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
. At its summit is a pediment
Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape.
Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds.
A pedimen ...
decorated with dentil
A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...
s.[ It contains its original ]wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
gates and overthrow. The structure was moved from an 18th-century house that was demolished in 1921, and rebuilt on the present site. The entrance leads to walled gardens behind the institute.
See also
*Listed buildings in Lancaster, Lancashire
The listed buildings in Lancaster, Lancashire (the unparished area within the wider City of Lancaster
The City of Lancaster () is a local government district of Lancashire, England, with the status of a city and non-metropolitan district. ...
*List of works by Paley, Austin and Paley
Paley, Austin and Paley was the title of a practice of architects in Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, Lancashire in the 19th century. The practice had been founded in 1836 by Edmund Sharpe. The architects during the period covered by this ...
*
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
The Storey
- official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Storey The, Lancaster
Grade II listed buildings in Lancashire
Buildings and structures in Lancaster, Lancashire
Paley, Austin and Paley buildings
Austin and Paley buildings
Infrastructure completed in 1891
Event venues established in 1891
Educational institutions established in 1891
1891 establishments in England
Tourist attractions in Lancaster, Lancashire