THE ARMITT MUSEUM AND LIBRARY, AMBLESIDE. Deborah Walsh

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1 CeNtre WoRdS No 9, 2010 THE ARMITT MUSEUM AND LIBRARY, AMBLESIDE Deborah Walsh In the Lake District, landscape and culture are inextricably entwined. For two hundred years, the lakes and fells have entranced individuals who, so inspired, responded in their writing and art. Many continue to be drawn here not only by the scenery but also by the vibrant cultural inheritance. It has been the aim of the Armitt for nearly a century to encapsulate and articulate this great heritage and, through its treasure house of archives, to capture the essence of such extraordinary and diverse individuals as John Ruskin, Harriet Martineau, Beatrix Potter and Kurt Schwitters. The Armitt Library was founded by Mary Louisa Armitt in 1909 and formally opened following her death in 1912, in rooms above the local chemist s shop. It was intended as a resource for the local scholarly community and incorporated the Ambleside Book Society founded in 1828 and the Ambleside Ruskin Library, which dates from the 1890s. The museum room was added in 1933 but with the steady acquisition not just of books but also manuscripts, artworks, photographs and local memorabilia, new, more spacious premises were required. After fifteen years of fund raising and with substantial help from the National Heritage Lottery Memorial Fund a new building was opened in This purpose built museum and library meets all the current standards for physical access, security, temperature, humidity, lux and UV controls. It includes two exhibition galleries, a secure store, a public reading room and a room to house the library s reserve collection. Today, the Armitt is no longer a private institution for subscribers only, it is open to anyone. The reference library on the first floor is free to use and houses a wealth of books on the local area and its history. These include extensive collections devoted to John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, Harriet Martineau and the internationally renowned artist, Kurt Schwitters. The library also houses one of the best 56

2 Centre for North-West Regional Studies collections of guidebooks to the Lakes dating from the eighteenth century onwards. Peter Bicknell in his 1990 bibliographical study of the scenery of the Lake District asserted that the Armitt collection of guidebooks was second only to that of King s College Cambridge. The collection also includes a number of rare and early volumes, a notable example being the Quadruplex Missalis printed in Basle in Many notable individuals donated collections of books to the library, including Beatrix Potter and her brother Rupert, Henry Plummer, Herbert Bell (the notable Lake District photographer), Ernest De Selincourt (the Wordsworth scholar) Gordon Graham Wordsworth, Canon Rawnsley, as well as many notable local families. Beatrix Potter is one of the Armitt s most important benefactors. Her interest in the library dates from her marriage in 1913 to William Heelis, who was a committee member. Her gifts began in 1933 with 122 books from her late father s library. Her most generous gift came after her death, in compliance with her expressed wish. This was the vast majority of her watercolours of fungi, mosses and lichens, including some of her best work. This unique and beautiful collection includes some 325 fungi of which 90 are microscope drawings. There is also a collection of 40 natural history watercolour paintings, which include mosses, fossils and bats. Added to these is a group of 23 archaeological paintings of various artefacts including shoes, pottery shards and utensils retrieved from excavations near London Wall in An important element of the Armitt is its photographic collection which includes approximately 23,000 photographic albums, prints, portfolio work and glass plate negatives. Predominant is the Herbert Bell collection (c ). Bell was the Armitt librarian and a noted photographer. His collection comprises several thousand images including early landscape photography and images of local working people (see Figure 1). Bell also made a key study entitled Domestic and Military Architecture which documents important 57

CeNtre WoRdS No 9, 2010 Figure 1 Herbert Bell, 'The Charcoal Burners' (c.1890) ( The Armitt Trust) local buildings, some of which have since been demolished. The J. W. Brunskill Collection includes some 17,000 glass plate negatives, the life s work of Windermere photographer James Brunskill.

3 CeNtre WoRdS No 9, 2010 Figure 1 Herbert Bell, 'The Charcoal Burners' (c.1890) ( The Armitt Trust) local buildings, some of which have since been demolished. The J. W. Brunskill Collection includes some 17,000 glass plate negatives, the life s work of Windermere photographer James Brunskill. These are largely portraits of exceptional quality, nearly all of which are named and date from the 1860s to Clearly these are of great value to anyone interested in local family history. The Armitt also holds a fascinating range of manuscripts, as diverse as plans for the Ambleside railway, Ruskin s letters to his doctor and other personal and family papers, the Beggars Entry Book for Ambleside and various documents relating to the Poor Law, and an eighteenth-century visitors book for the Salutation Hotel. It also holds extensive archives of the works of the political economist and 58

4 Centre for North-West Regional Studies social commentator Harriet Martineau and the educationalist Charlotte Mason. The archaeological collection comprises a fine group of Neolithic (Group VI) stone axes from the Langdale area in the form of both polished axes and rough-outs. The main body of the collection, however, comprises the extensive archive of Robin Collingwood s excavations of Ambleside Roman Fort and later excavations and interventions within the area of the vicus. The extensive fine art collection includes nine large bound books with prints of etchings with text published by William Green c.1820 of Lake District scenes and buildings, in addition to a number of pencil drawings and watercolours which include Ambleside buildings. The collection also has extensive work from the early nineteenth century by T. L. Aspland, Thomas Harrison, James Bourne and Julius Caesar Ibbotson, and from later in the century by James Harden, J. Scott, G. Seaton, J. Flower, and Patience and Jane Arnold. There is also a substantial collection of more modern work including sculptures by Josefina Vasconcellas. The Armitt is fortunate to have a number of works by the internationally recognized artist Kurt Schwitters. This includes the assemblage Wood on Wood (see Figure 2), created in 1947 whilst Schwitters was living in Ambleside. It is an organic piece, a simple twig, nailed to a piece of wood, on a wooden backboard painted in muted natural tones, representative of the scenery in which he was now living and working. In 1940s Ambleside his assemblage work was considered eccentric and even his portraits and landscapes confounded some. Schwitters himself admitted, In England, you must not see any brushstrokes on the surface of the picture. My pictures have brushstrokes, therefore I have difficulties. The Armitt is committed to the promotion of Schwitters legacy and to highlighting his relevance in our contemporary cultural landscape. In our most recent exhibition, Forward to Far: Telescoping Time from Schwitters to Now, the artists Russell Mills and Ian Walton 59

CeNtre WoRdS No 9, 2010 Figure 2 Kurt Schwitters, 'Wood on Wood' (1947) ( The Armitt Trust) produced a series of assemblage and collage works based on Schwitters Gesamtkunstwerk, the idea of the

5 CeNtre WoRdS No 9, 2010 Figure 2 Kurt Schwitters, 'Wood on Wood' (1947) ( The Armitt Trust) produced a series of assemblage and collage works based on Schwitters Gesamtkunstwerk, the idea of the complete integration of different forms and the act of art as an ordering of thought, material, process and memory. The exhibition has been described as deeply romantic art that is ultimately celebratory. 1 1 The Guardian, 11 July

6 Centre for North-West Regional Studies The Armitt has come through a difficult period, culminating with the flooding of November 2009 and threatened closure. The response to the Appeal launched in February 2010 was very positive and indicated that there is sufficient commitment both locally and nationally to prevent the threat becoming a reality. We are now working towards a more sustainable future which will include the development of partnerships with related organizations and the provision of a focus for local studies. Ultimately the past is recent as well as distant, and the Armitt s role of collecting, cataloguing, interpreting, archiving, conserving, and making available to the public is an ongoing dynamic process for the benefit of this and future generations. Further information about the Armitt, including opening times, will be found at Centre for North-West Regional Studies

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