Cliffe Castle Museum - Keighley, UK

3rd September 2013, Free (joined by Shelagh Deeney)

If they could see me now...

Cliffe Castle has always been a bit of a joke in our bustling metropolis of Bradford. Way out in the muddy backwaters of Keighley, we sophisticates saw nothing but a big house full of junk you'd find in your granddad's loft. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, a result of being dragged as a pre-teen on boring school trips through dusty corridors I'd seen a million times. That Tuesday morning was the last day of the school holidays in the region and you could tell, casualties of the never-ending summers you remember forever were everywhere. I empathised entirely. I know exactly how you feel, mate: school tomorrow and you're in Cliffe Castle. It was my mother's last day before the new term, so we celebrated by visiting a museum 100 metres away from the school in which she teaches, which was a noble sacrifice, indeed. 

Paradise

I'm not entirely sure why it's called Cliffe Castle because it sure as shit isn't a castle. A big house, maybe. Cliffe Big House? Maybe not. It used to be called 'Keighley Museum' which smacks of faceless municipality, but I'm stumped as to what Cliffe is. Maybe an homage to some of culture's greatest 'Cliffes': a precipice, Richard, fiscal. Who knows? 

The entrance was nice enough, the flowerbeds scrambling for the last of the summer sun and looking good for it. The buildings could do with a lick of paint and the greenhouse felt like something from 'Holidays from Hell' (see left). Before we got to the museum proper, we ate at the cafe that was stocked with some powerfully northern pleasures such as tartlets, strong tea and buttered white bread on china plates. 

The entrance to the museum is a gaudy William Morris affair. Nice enough, but they might have trouble if they ever tried to sell it on. Entry is affordably free and we're asked to put donations in an abstract concrete bear/cat thing that sent me into an apoplexy of Proustian rushes. Cliffe Castle is what some people would call a mess but what I'd call a delightful hotchpotch that all medium-sized museums can either embrace, such as here, or try to hide, such as the Media Museum. I've compartmentalised the review to give you a sense of how incongruous your Cliffe Castle experience will be. This is the route we took:

Keighley Stories & The Conservatory

I may be wrong, but I think when I was a younger man this space was filled with fossils. Now, it seems to have done what every struggling British museum does: GO VICTORIAN! It isn't a bad collection, though. It seems to have created a microcosm of the rest of the museum by packing it with disparate Victorian Keighley curiosities like a siamese cow, a tiger skull and a German helmet from WWI... Sorry Cliffe Castle, what's so Keighley about that? The conservatory's pretty much empty to which my mum pointed out,

"It's the summer holidays!"

Hear, hear.

Victorian minimalism

Victorian Music & Drawing Room

Did I mention Victoriana yet? Yep, here we stood behind a rope and gawped at the Victorians' primal fear of empty space. It's all rather pretty, I suppose, not my idea of a great night out but that's just me. The art has a distinct 'Toffs-by-numbers" bent: chap with big moustache in soldier's uniform, girl in billowing dress sat on horse, rolling fields of Blighty with big posh house.

Industry

What a night!

This is a worthy nod to the industries and workers that gave the Butterfields the wealth to afford Cliffe Castle in the first place. It's a relatively large area and we are, as expected, left to our own devices. There's miles of reading but I was never expecting anything in the way of a tour around here, so I'll let them off my bete noir  for now. However, some collections would have benefitted from a guiding hand as there's only so much agricultural equipment you can see before yawning yourself to death. There's a strong 'Yorkshire, then and now' motif that, for me, establishes two things: firstly, this is a museum for the people of Yorkshire - nothing wrong with that, they know their demographic better than me; and secondly, the James Herriot "Eee Yorkshire wer raat diffrunt then, ahh tell thee", which can fuck right off. A point of interest was the virtual access tour, a computer that gave a CGI trip through the museum, a pointless but thoughtful gesture that's fully aware of the building's inaccessibility. The Victorians could dig a canal from Blackpool to Burma but when it came to helping someone on crutches up a flight of stairs you better hang on 150 years, pal. 

Definitely in my top 10 favourite all-time
displays of harvesting equipment

Roman & Celtic Britain

Perhaps because the hulking great tonal shift left me a little punch-drunk, I don't have too much to say about this area. A lot of it was taken up with pottery and coins. They were interesting for what they were, but I've never gone to a museum and said, "forget the swords, statues, dinosaurs and paintings. They've got bits of smashed pottery. Quick!"

Airedale Gallery

(Big Bang - Ice Age)

This has been at Cliffe Castle since the early 80s at least and you can tell. It occupies the same chamber of my brain as massive watches hung on a bedroom wall, the theme tune to Raggy Dolls and fig rolls. This aside, the breadth, depth and delivery of these exhibits is very good. I was never aware of the "Ipswichian Interglacial Stage", but I am now! It boasts an impressive Ichthyosaur fossil and the information regarding the evolution of dinosaurs is dedicated but the real treat is the papier mache pholiderpeton: 

If that's what it really looked like,
extinction must have been sweet release

The Airedale Gallery is a bit shonky. The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski is a bit shonky. It's my belief that shonkiness can help cultivate quality if the message is good. This is really good. 

Egypt & British Coins

Weird haircut

For someone spoilt by the pervading splendour of the British Museum, a collection of Egyptian antiquities in a provincial museum could seem like a sneeze after a thunderstorm, but I commend this little space. Because of it's size, I cherished the humanity of each artefact that much more. Instead of racing past sarcophagus after sarcophagus, I stayed and studied their only sarcophagus and it's a precious thing. They have some beautiful little amulets and statuettes, and the story of their mummy is humbling. Beneath the mummy was a poem by a local poet (Arthur Seeley) that was, without meaning to patronise at all, pretty good. I mean, it wasn't Shelley, but then it wasn't nearly as shit as I thought it would be. My favourite part of the room was the inscription beside a priest's death mask that I shall deliver as the afore mentioned romantic poet:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"This is not as spectacular as Tutankhamen's tomb"

Bless you, Cliffe Castle! You can't win 'em all. 

The British coins were rubbish.

Bracewell Smith Hall

(Art Gallery)

Behind the dividing doors (that resembled those belonging to a middle school science lab) is a pretty and echoey rotunda displaying a wide range of art from a wide range of ages. The collection boasts a Nash, has some surprising unknowns and is refreshingly un-PreRaphaelite (*boak*), but not completely. The gallery's made a curious choice with the inscriptions beside each picture in which "local voices" have said what they think about the painting. If there's one thing that boils my bile, it's "local voices". I don't care, give me an expert. I'm a local half-wit, I don't need to know what another local half-wit thinks. My favourites were:

"It would be good to have [Nash] displayed at Cliffe Castle."

Oh, aye?

"It is very pleasing. Gives you a good feeling."

Jesus wept.

"We like that the main focus of the painting is female."

You two should check out a proper art gallery, you wouldn't believe it. 

I forgot to write down who this was by,
but isn't it good?

Minerals

There are some pulchritudinous rocks here but, unfortunately for them, they remain to be rocks. Cliffe Castle present their rocks in an agreeably academic tone and it's a topic some people feel passionately about, but they aren't sat in this chair. There are four rocks of roughly the same size that visitors can lift to see the large range of weight, however, thirty years of school trips have rendered their disparity negligible. 

Some rocks

Some rocks at a rave

Stuffed Animals

What did they expect with this flat-share?

Every stuffed animal has seen better days, but some more than others. This necro-menagerie is a grim experience; the animals of Britain have never looked more endangered than the moth-bitten shite on display here. A display marked "Controversial Trade" is a tenuous means of exhibiting their tiger rug and crocodile-skin bag. The animal lover in me balked, but is it better to hide them away? I don't know. What I do know is that this place needs a bit of spit and polish or, better still, binning. Perhaps they could turn the animal exhibits into a creepy Walter Potter affair and have the bittern getting married to the red squirrel or the platypus in a mortarboard; the kind of thing rich Victorians did for fun like faking seances, laughing at dwarves and mourning for fifty years. 

Stained Glass

There was a distinct early 80s feel to this room much akin to the Airedale gallery, but if it's not broke et al. The windows were rather pleasant, if not a bit Pre-Raphaelite (*boak*). Not much else to say. It's stained glass. 

Keighley Stories, cont.

What? You thought the first room was all Keighley had to offer? You don't know Keighley at all! Here's a quick list of the gimcracks Cliffe Castle think best represent Bradford's puppet state:

a suit

a stuffed crocodile

a doll's house

a bronze statuette

a public school hat

old, rubbish toy fire engines

a hoover

a NAZI FLAG*

manacles

another siamese farm animal (a sheep)

a crystal ball

a bathing costume

a grandfather clock

a Yorkshire terrier (stuffed)

a violin

a mounted cow's head

a Transformer toy

a wife's cradle (a crib-shaped container for a nagging wife. They were simpler times. Bloody hell.)

*taken from a raid in WWII, not made by an enthusiast

A right laugh

Bee Hive

The nook with the bee hive smelt of smokey sweet honey and contained a glass-cased bee hive full of grumpy bees. Bees and kids really hate September. The bees could do with a new hive, but then I guess that's all down to them.

Ladies Fashion

The idiosyncrasy of the museum is nowhere better showcased than below:

Strange girl band

The lasses get some pretty frocks.

The lads get a suit of armour and a sword from ages ago and miles away.

Ceramics

To finish on ceramics was a bit of a letdown. I think we all agree that ceramics arouse the same emotions as pottery. If you're into Toby Jugs, check it out. If you're not into Toby Jugs, welcome to being cool. There were porcelain statuettes of Byron and Nelson which would usually stir something in me but to be honest, I was done.

Overview

I went to Cliffe Castle prepared to tear apart the bugbear of my childhood, but surprisingly I think it's a rather splendid place with a very unique collection. The last admission is 3:30, which is pretty poor but again: small staff, small budget. There's loads of reading, much of which needs spellchecking, but a free museum under this kind of government has bigger challenges than a bald man's whinging. 

Cliffe Castle has always been a bit of a joke and I think it retains some of that, but that's good. With the seemingly inevitable and tragic demise of the Media Museum, Cliffe Castle could be the principal museum with a BD postcode and, you know what, I'd be fine with that.