Established | 2000 |
---|---|
Location | Chalon Way East, St Helens, WA10 1BX, England |
Coordinates | 53°27′00″N2°44′06″W / 53.4501°N 2.7349°W |
Type | Museum and visitor centre |
Collections | Pilkington collection; St Helens history collection |
Collection size | 7,000 |
Nearest parking | On site |
Website | www |
The World of Glass is a local museum and visitor centre in St Helens, Merseyside, England. The museum is dedicated to the local history of the town and borough primarily through the lens of the glass industry but also looking at other local industries. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The World of Glass was founded in 2000 and is an amalgamation of the former Pilkington Glass and St Helens Borough Council collections. The purpose-built premises was constructed adjacent to the Pilkingtons glassworks and the stretch of the St Helens Canal known as the "Hotties". [5]
The World of Glass was named as England's Best Small Visitor Attraction (2006). [6]
In the early 1990s, Pilkingtons undertook the £1 million restoration of the Grade II*-listed [7] Pilkington's Jubilee Cone building, a brick cone structure built in 1887 to house the first ever continuous glass making furnace. [8] Following the restoration, Pilkingtons floated the idea of utilising now redundant adjacent factory space (known locally as "The Hotties") as a museum for its historic glass collection. With subsequent interest from the Borough Council looking for somewhere to host their collection of local historical artefacts, the centre was funded through a National Heritage Lottery Fund contribution of £8,385,000 and European support in the form of Objective One and RECHAR II grants totalling £2,240,000 in addition to other grants. [9] [8]
The £14 million visitor centre was opened in March 2000 in a ceremony attended by the first chairman of the World of Glass and former chairman of Pilkington Glass Sir Antony Pilkington, the Mayor of St Helens Councillor Patricia Jackson as well as St Helens R.F.C. players and other dignitaries and special guests including local school children. [10] [9]
The museum and visitor centre comprises:
Currently the museum holds a total of over 7,000 artefacts. [13]
The museum has two main galleries - the Glass Roots Gallery and the Earth into Light Gallery. The first is concerned with the history of glass, its role in everyday life, and contains artefacts that date back as far as Ancient Egypt. The second tells the story of the growth of the town of St Helens as it moved from relative insignificance to become a world leader in glassmaking. [14]
There are live glassblowing demonstrations daily and visitors can try the art of glassblowing on one of their courses. [15]
The Victorian furnace and underground tunnels of the world's first regenerative glass making furnace, built in 1887 by William Windle Pilkington, can also be explored at the visitor centre. [1] There is an artisan gift shop and a café which looks out over the stretch of the St Helens Sankey Canal known as the Hotties. [16]
Since 2008 the World of Glass has been home to one of four chandeliers, restored by David Malik & Son, which originally hung in the main hall of Manchester Airport. [17] With 1,300 clear, smoked grey and amethyst lead glass droplets, individually blown by master craftsman Bruno Zanetti and weighing two tons, each chandelier was commissioned at a cost of £3,000 in the 1960s but would now cost more than £250,000. [18]
Off the west coast of Ireland, Clare Island Lighthouse was decommissioned in 1965 after almost 160 years' service. [19] The lighthouse optic, made in 1913 by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, found a new home at the Pilkington Glass Museum and then the World of Glass. [20]
The Clare Island Lighthouse itself was transformed into an upmarket guesthouse. [21]
A brand-new lending library for St Helens, provided by St Helens Council, opened at the World of Glass in September 2020. Occupying space on both the ground floor and mezzanine level, the lending library is for both children and adults, complete with more than 18,000 books. [22]
Dale Chihuly is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture".
Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about 1.5 km (1 mi) north of Venice and measures about 1.5 km (1 mi) across with a population of just over 5,000. It is famous for its glass making. It was once an independent comune, but is now a frazione of the comune of Venice.
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe. A person who blows glass is called a glassblower, glassmith, or gaffer. A lampworker manipulates glass with the use of a torch on a smaller scale, such as in producing precision laboratory glassware out of borosilicate glass.
Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks in the fine arts. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement, and typically serve no useful function. Though usage varies, the term is properly restricted to glass made as art in small workshops, typically with the personal involvement of the artist who designed the piece. This is in contrast to art glass, made by craftsmen in factories, and glass art, covering the whole range of glass with artistic interest made throughout history. Both art glass and studio glass originate in the 19th century, and the terms compare with studio pottery and art pottery, but in glass the term "studio glass" is mostly used for work made in the period beginning in the 1960s with a major revival in interest in artistic glassmaking.
The Metropolitan Borough of St Helens is a local government district with borough status in Merseyside, North West England. The borough is named after its largest settlement, St Helens, but also includes neighbouring towns and villages such as Earlestown, Rainhill, Eccleston, Clock Face, Haydock, Billinge, Garswood, Rainford and Newton-le-Willows.
St Helens is a town in Merseyside, England, with a population of 102,629. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, which had a population of 183,200 at the 2021 Census.
Clare Island, also historically Inishcleer, is a mountainous island guarding the entrance to Clew Bay in County Mayo, Ireland. Historically part of the kingdom of Umhaill, it is famous as the home of the 16th century pirate queen Gráinne O'Malley. The population of the island is 138 according to the 2022 census. To the south-west lies Inishturk (inhabited) and Caher Island (uninhabited), and to the north is Achill Island.
The St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway was an early railway line owned by a company of the same name in Lancashire, England, which opened in 1833. It was later known as St Helens Railway. It ran originally from the town of St Helens to the area which would later develop into the town of Widnes. Branches were opened to Garston, Warrington and Rainford. The company was taken over by the London and North Western Railway in 1864. The line from St Helens to Widnes and the branch to Rainford are now closed, the latter terminating at the Pilkington Glass' Cowley Hill works siding near Gerard's Bridge, but part of the lines to Garston and to Warrington are still in operation.
Eccleston is a civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, England. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 10,433.
The Liverpool–Wigan line is a railway line in the north-west of England, running between Liverpool Lime Street and Wigan North Western via St Helens Central station. The line is a part of the electrified Merseyrail Liverpool to Wigan City Line. The stations, and all trains serving it, are operated by Northern Trains, however the stations are branded Merseyrail using Merseyrail ticketing.
The Liverpool County Football Association Senior Cup, commonly known as the Liverpool Senior Cup, is a football knockout tournament involving teams from the city of Liverpool, England and surrounding areas.
Lino Tagliapietra is an Italian glass artist originally from Venice, who has also worked extensively in the United States. As a teacher and mentor, he has played a key role in the international exchange of glassblowing processes and techniques between the principal American centers and his native Murano, "but his influence is also apparent in China, Japan, and Australia—and filters far beyond any political or geographic boundaries."
Chance Brothers and Company was a glassworks originally based in Spon Lane, Smethwick, West Midlands, in England. It was a leading glass manufacturer and a pioneer of British glassmaking technology.
Dominick Labino was an American internationally known scientist, inventor, artist and master craftsman in glass. Labino's art works in glass are in the permanent collections of more than 100 museums throughout the world. Labino held over 60 glass-oriented patents in the United States.
Windle is a suburb of St Helens, civil parish and ward of the metropolitan borough of the same name. The population of Windle was given as 10,690 at the 2011 Census. It was one of the original four townships alongside Eccleston, Parr and Sutton formed that merged to become St Helens. The name derives from Windy Hill.
Ravenhead is an area of St Helens in the North West of England. It is bordered by Thatto Heath, Sutton and the Town Centre. The area is thought to take its name from a farm once located nearby, while the 'head' portion of the name represents its location at one of the higher points of the town. In this respect, Ravenhead joins other local placenames such as Burtonhead, Micklehead and Eltonhead.
St Helens is a large town and the administrative seat of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens in Merseyside, England. The town was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1868, responsible for the administration of the four townships and manors of Eccleston, Parr, Sutton and Windle. In 1887 this role was expanded to a county borough, which was superseded in 1974 by the larger metropolitan borough.
The Statue of Queen Victoria stands on the western side of Victoria Square, St Helens, Merseyside, England. It was created after the death of Queen Victoria and given to the town by Colonel William Windle Pilkington, mayor of St Helens in 1902, and a member of the Pilkington glass manufacturers in the town. Pilkington commissioned George Frampton to design it. Frampton used the same model for the figure of the queen for two other statues, but placed it on thrones and pedestals of different designs. The St Helens statue was unveiled by the Earl of Derby in 1905. Originally placed in the centre of Victoria Square, it was moved to a position on the west side of the square in 2000. The statue is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
Sir Antony Richard Pilkington was the fifth generation and last family member to chair the Pilkington group.
Media related to World of Glass, St Helens at Wikimedia Commons