Celebrating 400 years of The Judges’ Lodgings

Judges Lodgings team are delighted to announce that the museum has been awarded £88,969 from the National Lottery for ‘Judges Lodgings 400 – Voices from our community’.

This project will celebrate 400 years of the landmark building in Lancaster and 50 years of its use as a museum. The team of staff, Friends, volunteers and supporters will work with local people, a textile artist and community groups to reveal more of the working class history of the building. Huge thanks to the Friends for supporting this with £1000 of match funding.

The project includes restoration of the coal and wash sheds at the south side of the building and a small archaeological dig in the south courtyard. There will be newly commissioned textile artworks by Sewing Café Lancaster and artist Sarah Joy Ford sharing some of the history of the people who worked as servants or local people who came before the Poor Law Guardians seeking help from the parish.

In the Servants Hall, a new digital installation by artist Leo Hyde will share some of these stories through film and sound. Leo was previously the amazing artist behind the They Were People First installation projected onto Judges Lodgings in Light Up Lancaster in 2023. CELEBRATING 400 YEARS CELEBRATING 400 YEARS A new events programme to ‘Meet the Servants’ and house and family history workshops will be available plus pottery workshops and family art and sewing drop in sessions.

There will be an oral history project to record local people who lived or worked at the Judges Lodgings so we can preserve this heritage for the future. In the Welcome gallery and online a new digital tour with British Sign Language and captions will improve access for disabled people. We are also going to be refreshing some of the interpretation around the house in the Welcome gallery and ground floor corridor and the remains of Lancaster’s oldest public toilet in the basement. We are very pleased to be working with a number of local groups including Sewing Café Lancaster, Lancaster Black History Group and King Street Arts.

All this work builds on research from Sue Bradshaw’s book ‘They Walked These Floors’ (published by the Friends and available from the museum shop!) and research by Museum Assistants Naomi Parsons and Daniel Greene looking at the servants, inquests and Poor Law Guardian cases. Supported by the National Lottery Thanks to National Lottery Players