The Market Hall, Hawkshead, 1795 by CJ Worthington - Hawkshead, Cumbria, England
N 54° 22.481 W 002° 59.948
30U E 500056 N 6025210
The Market Hall is open as the lower rooms are used by visiting traders as temporary shops, where this painting is on display. This painting is recursive as it is on public display in the subject of the painting. Free entry. Looking South.
Waymark Code: WMGGBY
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/03/2013
Views: 11
Modern 1960s copy, by Mrs C J Worthington.
About 1795, damaged original. Unknown artist
Both in the care of Hawkshead Market Hall Trust.
Painting Description
The arches below the main hall are open in the painting as they were used as shambles. The old term for butchery places. Both meat and fish were traded from these arches. Other traders would have filled the square. There is a story of an old looking woman who traded from a convenient immovable rock. Like the rock she would not move when the Market Hall was built. So one of the hall's promoters offered to pay her an allowance until she died to get her to move. She out lived him.
Nowadays the arches have been filled in, creating two lower rooms. A cottage has been built on the left, extending the hall.
There are two versions of this painting. One was painted in 1960s as a copy of the original, which was painted shortly after the Market Hall was built, around 1795. But the original is in poor condition. The copy is on display. See Waymark gallery.
Artists
Mrs C Joan Worthington, who made the copy, used to live in Cunsey, a nearby village. She was born in 1911 and died in 2009. It would appear she was an illustrator as TT Macan, who possibly worked at nearby Ferry House for Fresh Water Biological Association (FBA), used her drawing expertise in his unpublished work on Lakes and Tarns (of the English Lake District).
The unknown original artist set their easel up in front of the King's Arms pub, which is where the modern image was taken. In the painting the slate clad buildings on the left burnt down around 1901. The other buildings in the square have not changed much. To get the church clock in view the artist has cheated because sight lines would hide the tower behind The Honeypot shop on the right. See Moderm image in Waymark gallery.
Further Information
In the corner of the frame a typed note reads:
quote:
This picture was copied from the old and damaged one at the rear of it, by Mrs. J. Worthington of Cunsey. It is thought that the original was painted after the first restoration in 1793 or 1795. A second restoration took place to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1898.
Note the white church, and the slated cottages where the Institute now stands.
Visiting
If the Market Hall lower room is not open when you visit please contact a key holder for free entry on 015394 36452. The painting is currently on public display in the left lower room through the door to the left of the red telephone box.