susan earlam ~ horror author

Just this weekend I finally paid a visit to the revamped Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.

The gallery is somewhere I remember fondly from my childhood as well as later on, being a art student. I been here many times, but since its makeover I hadn’t managed a trip.

I do remember always feeling like it should be bigger. And that in a nutshell (and understatement) is what they’ve achieved.

I took both daughters and met a friend and her son there. My friend was on the same art course as me at college so there was much reminiscing of what the gallery was like previously. We worked out that we’d been coming here for about 25 years!

The gallery frontage is the same, that beautiful red brick that you can see in much of the older architecture in Manchester (from the late 1800’s) and despite some scaffolding being up it still looks good. Rather imposing and dramatic, which I always liked. In fact as a child, I always thought the facade of the building was the best bit!

They’ve softened it a little, with steps, slopes and sculptures which give a sense of invitation, which was lacking previously.

The investment into the gallery was a cool £15 million and the building now has a beautiful and modern extension. This extension reaches, as if with open arms, finally into the park. Becoming part of Whitworth Park rather than teetering on the edge. Between these two arms into the park is a new Sculpture Garden- which we didn’t get chance to investigate properly on this visit.

The Whitworth gallery seems to have finally found its place, literally in the park.

There’s a jam packed events calendar with Thursday Lates, loads of family and kids things, along with events inside the park itself going on. Check the events out here.

We enjoyed a lovely brunch in the  and as for the shop– DON’T GO IN ITS FAR TOO DANGEROUS!! All the nice things- seriously.