Sauntering Saturday

Today we ambled over to Accrington and the Howarth Art Gallery. It is lovely to find such a beautiful building and gardens in the heart of Accrington. As you drive through a typical built enviornment that you would expect with an industrial northern town that is Accrington with a mixture of industrial architecture and rows and rows of terraced housing, you suddenly find yourself in an oasis of grandeur that is Howarth House.

It was the home of mill cotton owner William Howarth who bequeathed his home to the people of Accrington and whilst the gallery shows some of his personal art collection (admittedly not the best and a bit twee) the main attraction is that it houses the largest Tiffany collection in Europe. This is due to Joseph Briggs a local lad who worked with Tiffany in New York and left his vast collection of Tiffany to his home town.

Its a beautiful building, I particularly liked the arts and crafts staircase. It's free and well worth visiting. It has a fabulous bistro and we stopped for brunch which was really fabulous, fresh, high quality ingredients including Bury Black Pudding and a poached egg that had the deepest yellow yolk I'd ever seen. It was uber delicious.

Mr E also bought me a gift, (I know I'm spoiled) I'm afraid my photography doesn't do it justice but its a beautiful glass tea light holder, its so heavy and beautifully made. Very happy girl.

I also bought 3 cards with images of Alice in Wonderland courtesy of the British Library. I'm going to frame each card and they will look lovely in our guest bedroom which after recent decorating is lacking in art work on the walls. Watch this space.

I am a huge Alice in Wonderland fan which inspired one of my own creations, available in the shop

So after a lovely long morning / early afternoon in the wonderful sunshine, it was warm enough to take the old jacket off hoo blooming ray, I have a lazy rest of the day ahead of me, as Mr E is cooking tonight, he is armed with a Chinese chicken dish that he wants to create and I'm happy to be his scoffing guinea pig. Happy weekend one and all, until the next one Cxx