On Bank Holiday Monday, we went to Cliffe Castle Museum and Gardens in Keighley, which is about a 40 minute drive due north from where we live in Sowerby Bridge. We’d been to the gardens before on Good Friday in 2024, but the museum itself was closed and so we went to nearby East Riddlesden Hall instead.
History
Like Penrhyn Castle, Cliffe Castle was never a defensive castle, nor is it all that old as castles go – it’ll be celebrating its 200th birthday in the next few years. Instead, it was originally a smaller country house called Cliffe Hall which was then bought and expanded by the Butterfield family in 1848, adopting its current name in 1878. The expanded building gained a ballroom and conservatories, along with a tower over the main entrance.
In 1949, the castle and its grounds passed into public ownership, with financial assistance from a local benefactor, Sir Bracewell Smith. Smith also funded the building of an octagonal art gallery on the side, and it opened to the public as a museum in 1955. This replaced the previous Keighley Museum at Victoria Hall, which is now used as an events space.
Inside Cliffe Castle
Cliffe Castle is a typical ‘local authority museum’ (a bit like The World of Glass in St Helens) in that its exhibits are an eclectic mix of objects bequeathed to the local authority and its predecessor organisations. However, they are grouped together in themed galleries, so it’s not a complete hodgepodge, and most objects come with detailed descriptions.
On entering, there are several rooms set out from Cliffe Castle’s time as a stately home – namely the reception room and drawing room. These are full of period furniture and some musical instruments. You also get to see the lavish decorations on the walls and ceiling.
Whilst there’s no set route around the museum, we next went into the Working Landscapes gallery, which shows artefacts from local crafts and trades from the past such as weaving and clog-making. That led onto the Archaeology Gallery, which includes various hoards of coins and other artefacts excavated in the area. The most recent of which was the Riddlesden Hoard, found in 2014, consisting of over 100 Roman coins.
Next, we went into what was the Butterfield’s ballroom, but is now the Natural History Gallery. This is full of taxidermied animals, the vast majority of which are either native to the UK or are/were regular visitors. Some of these stuffed animals are quite old, and so are rather faded or just badly stuffed, presumably by someone not familiar with what the animal looked like when it was alive. But it’s a decent-sized collection.
The Airedale gallery tells the geological history of the area, including many fossils, and then there’s a mineral gallery with lots of gemstones and geodes – some of which are quite large.
Upstairs galleries
Upstairs, there’s a small gallery of stained glass windows that have been rescued from local churches and halls. The majority of these windows were designed by William Morris or people working for him.
Then there’s a gallery focussing on Keighley’s local history, with various objects on show, ending with a live beehive. The last bit that we went into was the octagonal art gallery that was added in the 1950s, which has two levels.
Exhibitions
When we visited, there were a couple of small exhibitions. One was about the Keighley Cougars, the local rugby league team which is approaching its 150th anniversary, and the other marks 80 years since the founding of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
Overall, we spent a little under two hours in the museum. This was mainly because we were going at the speed of our ten-year-old – I have no doubt that we could have spread it out to three hours or more if we’d had more time to engage with the exhibits. That’s not to say that there aren’t lots of things to keep kids entertained; there are various opportunities to dress up, or practice weaving, and there are trail guides that can be picked up in the entrance.
The gardens
Cliffe Castle’s gardens have undergone a relatively recent renovation. They are on a hillside, with some impressive water features at the bottom, a childrens’ playground in the middle and then a series of glasshouses and aviaries along the side. The aviaries are home to finches, budgies, cockatiels and, um, guinea pigs, with the glasshouses featuring more topical plants and succulents. There’s a wooded area at the very top, but we haven’t been into that.
Accessibility
The ground floor of the museum is all on one level with no steps, although wheelchair users will need to use a side entrance as the main entrance has a couple of steps. Sadly there’s no lift, although the majority of the exhibits are on the ground floor so those unable to use stairs can still see most of the museum. There is a disabled toilet; those needing a Changing Places toilet will need to go to Keighley Leisure Centre which isn’t too far away.
Entry is free, although a £3 per person donation is recommended. Normally the museum is closed on Mondays, but is open on some bank holidays.
There is a small car park on site, which is free. However, it has a maximum stay of three hours, probably because it’s so small. It was almost full when we got there, before the museum had opened. There is additional parking at the nearby Keighley Retail Park, but check the restrictions there too. The nearest electric car charger is at Keighley Leisure Centre, which is a rapid charger on the GeniePoint network.
Keighley railway station is a 20-25 minute walk from Cliffe Castle, with half-hourly trains to Leeds and Bradford and less frequent trains to Carlisle and Lancaster. Keighley bus station is a 15-20 minute walk; the 903 bus runs roughly hourly between 10am and 4pm Mondays-Saturdays and gets you much closer to Cliffe Castle.
