Exploring Culture Visit

Exploring Culture recently visited The Old House Museum in Bakewell. Dating from the reign of Henry VIII and initially built as a tax collector’s house, the Old House was enlarged under Elizabeth I to be a gentleman’s residence. In the late 18th Century the house was divided into five cottages for workers at the cotton mill built in Bakewell by the industrialist Richard Arkwright. By the 1950s sadly the cottages were deemed unfit as dwellings and condemned. They would have been demolished had not the Bakewell & District Historical Society, which was formed to protect the Old House, decided to use it as a museum. The members of Exploring Culture particularly enjoyed being allowed to dress up in Tudor costumes! Our special thanks to the volunteers who work so hard at the Museum for opening specially for us, a few weeks after having closed for the winter.