The Museum of Lakeland Life
This interesting and award winning museum is housed in the stable block of the Georgian Abbot Hall Art Gallery located in an attractive park on the banks of the River Kent in the southern part of Kendal.
The museum takes the visitor back in time to tell the story of the Lake District and its inhabitants from the late eighteenth century onwards.
The exhibition includes a typical street scene with a pharmacy, a toy shop and tailor's shop. There are also reconstructed workshops displaying curious machinery and furnished domestic interiors
There are recreated farmhouse rooms and workshops along with artefacts and photographs. Visitors are able to view these fascinating collections in the setting of elegant Georgian rooms and the paintings in their period setting, alongside period furniture and objects of art of the time and a seventeenth century four poster bed. The characterful farmhouse Lakeland kitchen is complete with recipes and utensils.
The displays include the Swallows and Amazons series of books, work by local photographers, and the Arts & Crafts Movement in the Lake District.
There is a room dedicated to the author Arthur Ransome (1884 – 1967), who settled in the Lake District, and is best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. The room his writings and drawings and a reconstruction of his study, where his desk, typewriter, pipes, books and general memorabilia are kept.
Abbot Hall Art Gallery
Abbot Hall hosts a fine collection of 18th, 19th and 20th Century art is set in an elegant Georgian villa. Lake District landscapes by Turner and Ruskin make up part of the collection. The collection bincludes works by George Romney (1734 - 1802) along with artists such as Ramsay, Lawrence, Nicholson, Schwitters, Spencer and Hepworth. The permanent collection is complemented by a programme of critically acclaimed changing exhibitions.
At Abbot Hall you can relax in the coffee shop where an apetising menu of locally produced food is freshly prepared daily. You can view changing exhibitions of artist's prints with a cappuccino or speciality tea. The Gallery Book shop offer a fine range of art books, exhibition catalogues and postcards.