To celebrate Heritage Open Days we are running three free behind the scenes tours of our collection stores throughout the day. These will offer you the chance to look behind the scenes at how we store and care for our amazing collection of over 35,000 heritage textiles, which are now stored in custom built storage in a converted 19th century textile mill. You'll also get the opportunity to see some items from the collection as we explore the stores.

The tour will be led by the collection's Curator, Rachel Midgley and each tour will last around 30 minutes with opportunities to ask questions afterwards.

Although these events are free of charge, booking is essential so that we can keep track of numbers as space in the stores is limited. There will be four tours run throughout the day starting at 11am, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm.

This listing is for the 11am start time.

You can find the 1pm tour here, the 2pm tour here and the 3pm tour here.

On the Day

Please arrive up to 15 minutes before the tour starts and allow a few minutes to enter the building. One of our team will greet you at the building reception, which is located at the top corner of our car park.

To help you locate our reception please either look up the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection map pin/marker on Google Maps, or use What3Words ///robots.roses.maybe

The Venue

Northlight is a former textile mill built in 1832 and a local landmark in Brierfield. Following extensive refurbishment the mill building is now home to not only offices and flats but also the storage and study facilities of the Gawthorpe Textile Collection.

There is limited free car parking available on site and Brierfield train station is just across the road from us.

Accessibility

The venue and our stores have step free access, wide doorways and accessible toilets. Disabled parking is available in our car park and there is a moderate slope to parts of the car park. If you have any access needs or requiremnets please get in touch on 01282 773963 and we will be happy to discuss them with you.

Heritage Open Days: Store Tours at Gawthorpe Textiles Collection 11am Start