The Collection

The original collection at the Helena Thompson Museum reflected the interests of the family and their way of life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and certain subjects in which Miss Helena Thompson was particularly interested.

The collection consisted of costume and textiles; antiques and curios; family possessions; portraits and domestic chattels dating from the second half of the eighteenth century.

Over the ensuing years, particularly in the last decade, the collection has grown, with a broadening of the scope to include particularly local trades, industries, and domestic and commercial life in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A significant photographic collection has been acquired and is currently being catalogued.

We would normally have on display The ‘Luck of Workington Hall’ kindly donated to us on loan by Mrs.Susan Thornely the head of the Curwen family, however due to the death of Mrs. Thornely the luck is currently in London being valued for inheritance purposes.

This door is shown on a very old photograph of the Hall and has a very interesting story.

A Cork Model of Workington Hall showing the extent of the improvements carried out under the direction of John Carr by the end of the 18 century. Dereliction set into the Hall after the second world war and in the 1970’s the local authority decided to strip away most of the 18th-century building, to expose the medieval and Tudor workmanship leaving it as a ruin.

This is an original window from the Chapel in the Hall, kindly loaned to the museum by Mrs.Susan Thornely.

A donation to the museum in the early 1970’s.

A Victorian Sideboard reputedly containing parts of the bed Mary Queen of Scots slept in whilst at Curwen Hall.

An embroidered Spanish Galleon ‘The Golden Bobbin’ from the Spanish Armada kindly donated by the South Lakelands Lacemakers.