Storey Institute
| The Storey | |
|---|---|
| Storey Institute | |
The Storey
|
|
| Coordinates | 54°02′55″N 2°48′15″W / 54.0487°N 2.8043°WCoordinates: 54°02′55″N 2°48′15″W / 54.0487°N 2.8043°W |
| OS grid reference | SD 474,617 |
| Built | 1887–1891 |
| Built for | Lancaster City Council |
| Architect |
Paley, Austin and Paley Austin and Paley |
| Architectural style(s) | Jacobean Revival |
|
Listed Building – Grade II
|
|
| Official name: Storey Institute | |
| Designated | 18 February 1970 |
| Reference no. | 1194973 |
|
Listed Building – Grade II
|
|
| Official name: Storey Institute, Back Entrance | |
| Designated | 22 December 1953 |
| Reference no. | 1194906 |
 Location in Lancaster
|
|
The Storey, formerly the Storey Institute, is a multi-purpose building located at the corner of Meeting House Lane and Castle Hill in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. Its main part is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building, with its back entrance being listed separately, also at Grade II.
The building was constructed between 1887 and 1891 as a replacement for the Lancaster Mechanic's Institute, which stood on a different site, to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. It was paid for by Thomas Storey, a local businessman who had been mayor in the year of the Jubilee, and was renamed the Storey Institute in his honour in 1891. Its purpose was "the promotion of art, science, literature, and technical instruction". The building was designed by the architects Paley, Austin and Paley whose office stood nearby. It contained a reading room, a library, a lecture room, a laboratory, a music room, a picture gallery, a school of art, and accommodation for a caretaker. The building cost about £12,000 (equivalent to £1,180,000 in 2015). In 1906–08 it was extended to commemorate the accession of Edward VII. This was designed by the successors in the architectural practice, Austin and Paley, to provide more rooms for teaching. Thomas Storey's son, Herbert, paid £10,000 towards the cost of the extension, which almost doubled the size of the building.
The permanent art collection contained paintings by local artists including Samuel John "Lamorna" Birch and William Hoggatt. Its first art exhibition, held in 1889, included paintings by Gainsborough, Constable, and Canaletto. Over the years, the building has been used as the City Art Gallery, a public library, a girls’ grammar school, and from the 1950s to 1982 as the Lancaster College of Art. In the 1960s there were touring exhibitions of works by Picasso, Matisse, and Francis Bacon. The permanent art collection was moved in 1968 to Lancaster City Museum. By the 1980s the gallery was rarely used, and in 1991 a group of local artists re-established it as the Storey Gallery. In 1998 the walled gardens behind the institute were laid out as an art work,The Tasting Garden, by Mark Dion.
...
Wikipedia