Conservation of the painting ‘Cawthorne Church from the Park’

Barnsley Museums and Heritage Trust has been delighted to continue to help with the conservation of items in the museum collection, and the latest item to benefit has been a fabulous painting of ‘Cawthorne Church from the Park’ by a British School artist.  

Painted in the mid-18^th century, it is an oil on canvas of a landscape set into a frame above the fireplace in the large north-east room, which is now used to house temporary exhibitions. This landscape is of the Cannon Hall estate leading towards Cawthorne with the church in the middle distance.  

There are a number of figures in the painting including a male and female who may be John Spencer and a companion plus a servant in the foreground. The Spencer and Spencer Stanhope families owned Cannon Hall for many generations as well a great deal of the land around it. Cawthorne was their local village and they made many improvements to the church over the years including stained glass dating to 1867 attributed to William Morris and further stained glass designed by Roddam Spencer Stanhope. 

The painting has been in situ over the fireplace for many years and its position has meant that it had become extremely dirty, and there was also debris lodged behind it causing further damage. The painting has been expertly cleaned and conserved by Lucy Critchlow of Critchlow and Kukkonen and is now looking much brighter – particularly on the areas of blue sky – for everyone to enjoy.    

This conservation work was made possible thanks to a very generous Gift in a Will to Cannon Hall. If you would like to discuss how to make a Gift yourself, please get in touch at info@bmht.org. Alternatively, you can make a donation at www.bmht.org to help us to continue to support the work of Barnsley Museums.