 Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens from Mowbray Park | |
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| Established | 1846 |
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| Location | Burdon Road, Sunderland, England |
| Type | Museum |
| Website | www |
Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens is a municipal museum in Sunderland, England. It contains the only known British example of a gliding reptile, the oldest known vertebrate capable of gliding flight. The exhibit was discovered in Eppleton quarry. The museum has a Designated Collection of national importance. [1]
It was established in 1846, in the Athenaeum Building on Fawcett Street, the first municipally funded museum in the country outside London. The first recorded fine art acquisition was commissioned by the Sunderland Corporation, a painting of the opening of the new South Dock in 1850. This may have been the first time that an artwork was commissioned by a town council. [2]
In 1879, the Museum moved to a new larger building next to Mowbray Park including a library and winter garden based on the model of the Crystal Palace. U.S. President Ulysses Grant was in attendance at the laying of the foundation stone by Alderman Samuel Storey in 1877. The building opened in 1879. [3]
During World War II, Winter Garden was damaged by a parachute mine in 1941 and demolished the following year. [4] A 1960s extension took its place, but in 2001, a lottery funded refurbishment of the museum created a new Winter Garden extension [5] and improved facilities.
The Winter Gardens contain over 2,000 flowers and plants. [6]
In 2003, the Museum was recognised as the most attended outside London.
The Museum contains a large collection of the locally made Sunderland Lustreware pottery. [7] Other highlights of the Museum are a stuffed Lion which was acquired in 1879, [8] the remains of a walrus brought back from Siberia in the 1880s and the first Nissan car to be made in Sunderland. [9] Also featured are the skeletal remains of a male human being and a dinosaur bone which was found in the local area. [10]
The library moved in 1995 to the new City Library and Arts Centre on Fawcett Street (occupying part of the former Binns Department Store). [11] The relocation left more space for museum exhibitions. The new City Library Arts Centre also houses the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, renowned as one of the leading forums for emerging artists in the North of England.
John Morrison wrote an affectionate memoir of the two and a half years he spent working in the museum as a junior curator, starting about 1918, which appeared in the Australian literary journal Overland in 1968. [12]
L.S. Lowry described his discovery of Sunderland in 1960, after which it became his second home: [13] "One day I was travelling south from Tyneside and I realised this was what I had always been looking for."
Sunderland Museum, with six works and 30 on long-term loan, have a Lowry collection surpassed only by Salford and Manchester.
Sunderland is a port city in Tyne and Wear, North East England. It is located at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Newcastle upon Tyne. The city has a population of 168,277, making it the second largest settlement in the North East after Newcastle. It is the administrative centre of the metropolitan borough of the same name.
Othniel Charles Marsh was an American professor of paleontology at Yale College and president of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new species and theories on the origins of birds.
Sunderland, commonly known as the City of Sunderland, is a metropolitan borough with city status in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Sunderland, spanning a far larger area, including nearby towns including Washington, Hetton-le-Hole and Houghton-le-Spring, as well as the surrounding villages and hamlets. The district also forms a large majority of Wearside which includes Chester-le-Street in County Durham.
Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, England. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three connected buildings, two of which were designed by Sir Charles Barry. Both of Barry's buildings are listed. The building that links them was designed by Hopkins Architects following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions. It opened in 2002 following a major renovation and expansion project undertaken by the art gallery.
MIMA, or Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, is a contemporary art gallery based in the centre of Middlesbrough, England. The gallery was formally launched on Sunday 27 January 2007; since 2014 it has been part of Teesside University.
Hendon is an eastern area of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, North East England, the location of much heavy industry and Victorian terraces and three high-rise residential tower blocks. The area is commonly referred to as the East End of Sunderland. Hendon is west of Sunderland Docks.
The Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is a museum on New Walk in Leicester, England, not far from the city centre. It opened in 1849 as one of the first public museums in the United Kingdom. Leicester Museum & Art Gallery contains displays of science, history and art, both international and local. The original building was designed by Joseph Hansom, designer of the hansom cab. It has been expanded several times, most recently in 2011.
Coelurus is a genus of coelurosaurian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period. The name means "hollow tail", referring to its hollow tail vertebrae. Although its name is linked to one of the main divisions of theropods (Coelurosauria), it has historically been poorly understood, and sometimes confused with its better-known contemporary Ornitholestes. Like many dinosaurs studied in the early years of paleontology, it has had a confusing taxonomic history, with several species being named and later transferred to other genera or abandoned. Only one species is currently recognized as valid: the type species, C. fragilis, described by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879. It is known from one partial skeleton found in the Morrison Formation of Wyoming, United States. It was a small bipedal carnivore with elongate legs.
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum is a museum, art gallery, records archive, learning centre, media studio and creative arts facility on Jordan Well, Coventry, England.
The Sunderland Art Gallery is an art gallery based within the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens centre, in Sunderland City Centre.
Mowbray Park is a municipal park in the centre of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England, located a few hundred yards from the busy thoroughfares of Holmeside and Fawcett Street and bordered by Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens to the north, Burdon Road to the west, Toward Road to the east and Park Road to the south. The park was voted best in Britain in 2008.
Sunniside is a district of Sunderland, North East England, towards the eastern side of the city centre, bounded to the west by Fawcett Street, to the south by Borough Road, and to the north and east by the Inner Ring road. A significant programme of urban development has established Sunniside as a centre of culture, film, dining, entertainment and art in the city. It is also known as the historic heart of Sunderland's legal and real estate sectors, with many solicitors and estate agencies based in the area.
Garden Park is a paleontological site in Fremont County, Colorado, known for its Jurassic dinosaurs and the role the specimens played in the infamous Bone Wars of the late 19th century. Located 10 km (6.2 mi) north of Cañon City, the name originates from the area providing vegetables to the miners at nearby Cripple Creek in the 19th century. Garden Park proper is a triangular valley surrounded by cliffs on the southeast and southwest and by mountains to the north; however, the name is also refers to the dinosaur sites on top and along the cliffs. The dinosaur sites now form the Garden Park Paleontological Resource Area, which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy.
Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre, formerly known as Bury Museum and Art Gallery, is a public museum, archives, and art gallery in the town of Bury, Greater Manchester, northern England, owned by Bury Council. Built in 1901, the museum's buildings were restored and reopened in 2005.
John Gordon Morrison was a British-born Australian novelist and short story writer.
Brightwen Binyon, FRIBA, was a British architect.
The Usher Gallery is an art museum in Lincoln, England. The gallery displays a collection of artworks by painters such as J. M. W. Turner and L. S. Lowry. Established in 1927, it is run as part of the Collection.
Sunderland City Centre is the central business district in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. The city centre is just to the west of Sunderland Docks.
Media related to Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens at Wikimedia Commons 54°54′15″N1°22′48″W / 54.90417°N 1.38000°W
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