This is a FREE creative week-long workshop and competition for young people aged 13 to 18 years, offered by British Textile Biennial, University of Lancashire and the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection . Work with fashion design mentors to create repurposed and up-cycled outfits, style your looks in a professional photo shoot and maybe win a prize for the best design. No previous textiles or sewing experience necessary - we will teach you basic sewing and pattern cutting skills! DATES: Taking place from Monday 3rd - Friday 7th August from 10am - 3pm VENUE: Gawthorpe Textiles Collection Suite 26, Unit 2, Northlight House, Pendle Road, Brierfield, BB9 5FL BOOKING: Booking has now closed for 2026!

Gawthorpe Textiles Collection (GTC) and British Textile Biennial (BTB) are very pleased to announce a creative and dynamic new partnership which will see BTB take on the running of GTC, working with the Gawthorpe Textile Collection board of trustees to increase access and engagement both locally and nationally with this nationally significant collection. Founded in 2017, British Textile Biennial, a free festival of contemporary art, commissions artists and designers from all over the world to make work inspired by the context and legacy of the textile industry in East Lancashire. Collaborating with partners and local communities to commission long term projects in venues and public spaces across Lancashire, as well as running a year-round education programme, BTB plays a key role in the cultural development of the area, offering a range of inspirational creative experiences and opportunities for everyone.

Get your copy of the new biography celebrating the life and work of Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth

Remembering Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth on her birthday - 17 February.

We're proud to announce the forthcoming publication of a new biography of our founder, Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth.

The Gawthorpe Textiles Collection is on the move to ensure the legacy left by Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth MBE lives on for future generations. A collection of over 30,000 textile and craft items that has been housed at Gawthorpe Hall for more than half a century has been carefully relocated to Northlight in Brierfield. The charity will retain its public gallery space within the hall, which is undergoing a redisplay as part of the investment in the collection’s future, so visitors can continue to enjoy the internationally renowned collection of global textiles in Padiham. The collection’s new home is a redeveloped cotton mill which has stunning historical features of its own as well as a textile heritage. Northlight offers the space and flexibility to store and continue to grow the collection, as well as providing a modern, fit-for-purpose workshop space to increase public access to this important educational collection. Linda Drury, Director of Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, said: “When I joined the charity last year the trustees were already considering moving the collection from the hall as moisture and damp building up in the storage area was starting to impact on some items within it. “Northlight offers us a more practical space and we are looking forward to welcoming people through our doors once the unboxing process has been done! “Moving a collection of such enormity and value has taken a lot of logistical planning and we are very grateful to all of our wonderful staff and volunteers who have played their part in making it happen.” Lord Shuttleworth, Chairman of Trustees and Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth’s great nephew, explained: “Rachel wanted to use creativity and craft for the good of the community as she believed it was the key to unlock health, social and economic prospects for those most in need. “Her dedication led her to open her home in Gawthorpe Hall to the public and she campaigned tirelessly to raise the funds needed to secure its future during her lifetime. “While Rachel’s work is synonymous to Gawthorpe Hall, it felt like the right time to move the collection to ensure its longevity for generations to come. "Our vision as a charity remains to develop a centre of excellence for textile learning based around the collection and this move is a significant step in achieving that. “We cannot thank the team enough for working tirelessly to make this happen and we look forward to a bright future at Northlight.” Recent funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Key Fund’s Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund have helped support the move.

Thanks to funding support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this year we are running a programme of artist led free workshops across Burnley and Pendle. We have appointed four artists to generate exciting, high quality creative opportunities for people from the local community to engage with the collection. These free workshops will use the textiles of GTC as the catalyst for creative activities, learning new skills, meeting people and making friends. Meet the Artists: Nayna Lad Artist Nayna Lad is 48 years old, of Indian heritage and she currently resides in Liverpool. Having always had a passion for art, she knew it was something that she wanted to do as she got older. Nayna is formally trained to degree level having studied Interior Design and then in the year 2000 she trained to become an Art Teacher. Nayna says that she loved working with children, it was incredibly rewarding not just teaching a subject but also supporting them into adulthood. In 2018 she decided on a career change to become a freelance visual arts facilitator and she has never looked back: “I love how varied my workshops are from delivering to toddlers right through to the elderly, being involved with drop-in sessions through to longer projects. I work with a wide range of media, but my favourite is printing, textiles and clay and I’m always developing my skill set and learning new techniques to create interesting and creative workshop concepts.” Printing, Embroidery and Embellishment Textiles workshops Nayna will be running a series of ten free textiles workshops at Burnley Mechanics commencing on Wednesday 21st June from 10am to 12 noon to Wednesday 19th July, followed by a summer break and recommencing on Wednesday 6th September until 4th October. To find out more or register to join the workshops, please contact Bev by email at b.lamey@gawthorpetextiles.org.uk Julia Swarbrick Julia Swarbrick is a visual artist primarily working as a painter-printmaker. Her background incorporates the fields of Fine Art, Performance and Public engagement. She has over a decade’s experience delivering visual arts workshops in a wide range of settings with a particular interest in the museum and heritage sector, looking at ways to enliven collections and engage audiences through art practice. Julia finds inspiration in the natural world around her, in the historical, in the personal and the imagined. Found elements from the natural world combined with mental biography are the rich source for the images she creates; using painting and printmaking as mediums that compliment and inform one another. Her work explores her external and immediate environment alongside the internal world of imagination and storytelling. Julia has exhibited across the UK and internationally. Exhibitions include Liverpool Biennial, The Harris in Preston, The Bluecoat, Liverpool, and the Spectrum Gallery in Perth, Australia. Her own work has been inspired by working with the museums’ collections. She is a regular at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery where she has held two solo shows and regularly delivers workshops. Printmaking Workshops Julia is running a series of ten free weekly printmaking workshop s at Gannow Community Centre in Burnley from Tuesday 27th June from 10am to 12.30pm until September 5th. For more information and to sign up for the workshops please contact Bev at b.lamey@gawthorpetextiles.org.uk Nazia Sultana Artist Nazia Sultana is based in Nelson, Lancashire. She graduated from Cleveland College of Art and Design in International Textiles and Surface Design. Although Nazia is primarily a textile artist, she also loves to work with other subjects including print, calligraphy and fine art. Her work reflects who she is and what she loves: “I love using a variety of mixed media on my work. I love nature and am hugely influenced by the intensity of colours and surfaces of the world around me, and my work shows this in varying degrees.” Nazia is interested in creating new and exciting techniques that further layer her work and make it unique and different. Decorative Textiles Workshops Nazia has worked with a group of participants at the DEEN Centre in Brierfield to create artworks with a strong ethos of upcycling and sustainability. The workshops included a visit to source materials from charity shops – garments, bags of sequins, and jewellery which were combined with discarded items we typically throw away and undervalue such as leaves twigs crushed bottle tops bits of metal etc. to create beautiful artworks.

A popular item from the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection was the inspiration for a stunning piece of art adorning a Padiham gable wall. Artist Chris Butcher transformed the blank canvas wall on Church Street, into a mural called ‘Up the Hill’, representing the town’s industrial heritage as a textile producer. The artwork features two tram cars, with passengers on board and surrounding the trams are examples of textile work inspired by our very own Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, on display at the nearby Gawthorpe Hall. So, what do we know about the item on which Chris based his artwork? The peacock panel was embroidered by Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth as a present for her parents, Ughtred and Blanche, for their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1921. She chose cloth of gold for the background fabric and had it framed in an ornate gilt frame made by the Medici Society. This panel of embroidery is worked in a technique known as laid work where long stitches are laid down first to fill in the shapes and then secured with smaller couching stitches. The design of a vase, exotic flowers and a pair of peacocks was sketched out by Rachel’s cousin Valerie, Lady North and is taken from one of the carved and pierced parapets up in the galleries of St Mark’s Cathedral, Venice. Rachel worked on this piece while she was recovering from typhoid fever and perhaps this is why she chose the laid work technique as it allows large areas to be covered relatively quickly. The embroidery uses many colours of silk floss thread that Rachel arranged carefully to create beautiful gradients and is further embellished with gold metal threads and iridescent beetle wings on the peacocks’ tails. Linda Drury, director of the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, said: “The piece is on permanent display in Gawthorpe Hall and is one of the most iconic pieces in the collection, so it’s really fitting that this was the piece chosen to be represented in the mural. "It also has a strong link to the Shuttleworth family, who were so instrumental in supporting the communities of Padiham and Burnley. “The peacock as a symbol of resurrection is also quite fitting with the regeneration of the high street and we are so happy that Chris chose this for his eye-catching mural.” The mural was brought to life with the help of the Padiham Gable Art Project Steering Group including local businesses and groups, Mid Pennine Arts, Padiham Archives and Gawthorpe Hall. It forms part of the Gable Arts Project, which aims to bring the vibrant history of Padiham to life as part of the wider £1.4million Townscape Heritage scheme funded by the National Lottery Fund. The Gable Ends Project was supported by Burnley Council, Padiham Town Council, local businesses and residents.

An 18-month project to modernise and digitise the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection has begun. The “Cherish the Past, Create for the Future’ project has been made possible through National Lottery Heritage Fund and lays the foundations for improving both physical and virtual access to the collection. New director of the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, Linda Drury, said: “We are extremely grateful to have received this funding, which goes a long way in helping us to reach more audiences and bring the collection up-to-speed in a digital world.” The funding has already enabled the employment of two new members of staff; one to lead a programme of outreach across East Lancashire and a second to undertake a comprehensive review and digitisation of the Collection. Bev Lamey, outreach programme leader, said: “We have already started a 10-week programme with the very talented local female artist Nazia Sultana in collaboration with The DEEN Centre, a faith-based organisation for women and children. “This unique project focuses on activities to encourage story-telling and narrative building, where participants will learn about the shared heritage of textiles that spans global cultures. “The project aim is to help women learn creative practices such textile surface designing, fabric manipulation techniques and we have already received positive feedback from those taking part. As Collections Officer, Rachel Terry’s job is to photograph, categorise and digitise some 30,000 items within the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection. She said: “I previously worked for the collection as curator, so am familiar with many of the popular items within the collection. But there are a whole host of other gems hidden away in boxes and I have the pleasure of unveiling these items and ensuring they are catalogued within the collection. “I couldn’t do this without the help of our valuable volunteers.” There is also funding within the project to modernise the textile displays at Gawthorpe Hall by introducing new perspectives and stories and bringing them to life with audio and film. ‘Cherish the Past, Adorn the Present, Create for the Future’ was a principle that Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth developed from the teachings of architect and designer William R Lethaby. Linda added: “The ethos of using heritage to create for the future is something that we still hold dear at the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, using our fabulous collection as a means of creating opportunities to learn and to inspire creativity. “Our vision remains to develop a centre of excellence for textile learning based around the collection and this project will be a significant step in building towards that. “We look forward to the next exciting chapter for the Collection.”