Bedford is an attractive but unassuming town and an unlikely place to find a stellar museum collection.
But over the years it has quietly amassed a hoard of treasures through generous benefactors and shrewd curators, and these objects have now been redisplayed in a building that gives them the attention they deserve.
The new museum, which opened in June after a phased redevelopment that started in 2007, is a fusion of the former Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford Museum and Bedford Gallery.
The collections are now housed in a single venue created by linking the existing historic buildings on the site and adding new galleries and visitor facilities.
The museum displays paintings, decorative arts, archaeology, ethnography, natural history and local history within historic and contemporary spaces – a fairly typical mix for a regional museum. What sets the Higgins apart is the extraordinary quality of the collections.
As well as an outstanding range of fine art, the museum is home to the Edward Bawden collection of prints and drawings, given to the museum by the artist, and the Handley-Read collection of Victorian furniture and decorative arts, which includes magnificent painted furniture designed by the architect William Burges.
Remodelled
The challenge for the curators and designers was to display this impressive collection alongside temporary exhibitions within a new building that was created partly from a historic house and partly from a brewery.
The result is a distinctive building, retaining historic facades while providing bright modern spaces within. With the rebranding eliminating any reference to museums and galleries, the displays inside the Higgins may come as a surprise to some visitors.
The entrance courtyard and reception area are welcoming, with the cafe and shop offering a diversion to the museum displays. But once through the door into the galleries, the shortcomings of the new building become evident.
White corridors, hallways, stairs and closed doors create a confusing warren of spaces, in which it is all too easy to lose your bearings, although a handy orientation map is available at the reception area. In retrospect, there is a logical route around the galleries.
The sensible place to start is the Settlement gallery, telling the story of Bedford’s prehistory, before moving on to Somewhere in England, where the development of the town and its people is explored.
I was impressed with this space. Its mix of objects, panels and interactives is presented in a conventional yet engaging way, and I found myself drawn into the story of Bedford, which turns out to be really interesting.
The title of the exhibition is cleverly taken from the BBC radio broadcasts of the war years when Bedford was used as a temporary home away from London, a deliberately undisclosed location that seems to reflect something of the nature of the town, an irony that will not be lost on local visitors.
Historic house
The Great Bedfordians gallery is another treat for locals, featuring historic figures on one wall and celebrating the achievements of contemporary townspeople on the other.
This leads to the Collectors, which shines a bright light on traditional museum displays while telling the story of the origins of the museum collections.
Beautiful natural history specimens are liberated from their dusty and crowded mahogany cabinets of yesteryear and the curatorial follies of egg collecting, shooting rare birds and not accessioning objects are explored rather than obscured.
Next to a large interactive cabinet of curiosities, visitors can add their own comments on an iPad Caption Creator, which is a user-friendly and thoughtful way to share the collections with visitors.
The house built by the Higgins brewing family, which once housed the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, has been engulfed in the new building and loses some of its historic atmosphere, blending as it does into the modern galleries.
There is no sense of arrival in the new layout and it is not until you go up or down the elegant staircase that you sense you are in a historic house. With few pieces original to the house, the room sets are a general representation of Victorian taste, some with display cases and others arranged as period rooms.
Superlative collections
The Design gallery is more successful. It showcases the museum’s outstanding collection of decorative arts, with glassware, ceramics, textiles and furniture of exceptional quality on display.
The objects are grouped into design movements, and play to the strengths of the collections, focusing on the 19th century with ceramics by William de Morgan, furniture by Voysey and textiles by Morris & Co.
Alongside the objects are iPads showing short “How it’s made” films. A beautifully presented gallery next to this focuses on the work of Bawden. The Higgins is modest about its collections.
If I were designing the galleries, there would be huge golden arrows pointing, Mona Lisa-style, to the Burges room tucked away at the far end of the building.
Stepping down into this hexagonal gallery with its dark walls and dramatic lighting, visitors enter the medieval fantasy world of the architect, where jewels glitter on bedsteads and painted figures dance around wardrobes.
The furniture is simply displayed on elegant plinths, and the unusual shape of the room is reminiscent of Burges’s own interiors. The pieces are joyous in their design and playful in their detail and deserve to be celebrated.
It’s hard to imagine ever tiring of this superb permanent collection, but with five temporary exhibition spaces, an events programme for all ages and an extensive range of learning activities, the museum is offering much more.
The Higgins has put Bedford on the map.
Caroline Ikin is a former collections manager at the National Trust and now works as a writer and researcher
But over the years it has quietly amassed a hoard of treasures through generous benefactors and shrewd curators, and these objects have now been redisplayed in a building that gives them the attention they deserve.
The new museum, which opened in June after a phased redevelopment that started in 2007, is a fusion of the former Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford Museum and Bedford Gallery.
The collections are now housed in a single venue created by linking the existing historic buildings on the site and adding new galleries and visitor facilities.
The museum displays paintings, decorative arts, archaeology, ethnography, natural history and local history within historic and contemporary spaces – a fairly typical mix for a regional museum. What sets the Higgins apart is the extraordinary quality of the collections.
As well as an outstanding range of fine art, the museum is home to the Edward Bawden collection of prints and drawings, given to the museum by the artist, and the Handley-Read collection of Victorian furniture and decorative arts, which includes magnificent painted furniture designed by the architect William Burges.
Remodelled
The challenge for the curators and designers was to display this impressive collection alongside temporary exhibitions within a new building that was created partly from a historic house and partly from a brewery.
The result is a distinctive building, retaining historic facades while providing bright modern spaces within. With the rebranding eliminating any reference to museums and galleries, the displays inside the Higgins may come as a surprise to some visitors.
The entrance courtyard and reception area are welcoming, with the cafe and shop offering a diversion to the museum displays. But once through the door into the galleries, the shortcomings of the new building become evident.
White corridors, hallways, stairs and closed doors create a confusing warren of spaces, in which it is all too easy to lose your bearings, although a handy orientation map is available at the reception area. In retrospect, there is a logical route around the galleries.
The sensible place to start is the Settlement gallery, telling the story of Bedford’s prehistory, before moving on to Somewhere in England, where the development of the town and its people is explored.
I was impressed with this space. Its mix of objects, panels and interactives is presented in a conventional yet engaging way, and I found myself drawn into the story of Bedford, which turns out to be really interesting.
The title of the exhibition is cleverly taken from the BBC radio broadcasts of the war years when Bedford was used as a temporary home away from London, a deliberately undisclosed location that seems to reflect something of the nature of the town, an irony that will not be lost on local visitors.
Historic house
The Great Bedfordians gallery is another treat for locals, featuring historic figures on one wall and celebrating the achievements of contemporary townspeople on the other.
This leads to the Collectors, which shines a bright light on traditional museum displays while telling the story of the origins of the museum collections.
Beautiful natural history specimens are liberated from their dusty and crowded mahogany cabinets of yesteryear and the curatorial follies of egg collecting, shooting rare birds and not accessioning objects are explored rather than obscured.
Next to a large interactive cabinet of curiosities, visitors can add their own comments on an iPad Caption Creator, which is a user-friendly and thoughtful way to share the collections with visitors.
The house built by the Higgins brewing family, which once housed the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, has been engulfed in the new building and loses some of its historic atmosphere, blending as it does into the modern galleries.
There is no sense of arrival in the new layout and it is not until you go up or down the elegant staircase that you sense you are in a historic house. With few pieces original to the house, the room sets are a general representation of Victorian taste, some with display cases and others arranged as period rooms.
Superlative collections
The Design gallery is more successful. It showcases the museum’s outstanding collection of decorative arts, with glassware, ceramics, textiles and furniture of exceptional quality on display.
The objects are grouped into design movements, and play to the strengths of the collections, focusing on the 19th century with ceramics by William de Morgan, furniture by Voysey and textiles by Morris & Co.
Alongside the objects are iPads showing short “How it’s made” films. A beautifully presented gallery next to this focuses on the work of Bawden. The Higgins is modest about its collections.
If I were designing the galleries, there would be huge golden arrows pointing, Mona Lisa-style, to the Burges room tucked away at the far end of the building.
Stepping down into this hexagonal gallery with its dark walls and dramatic lighting, visitors enter the medieval fantasy world of the architect, where jewels glitter on bedsteads and painted figures dance around wardrobes.
The furniture is simply displayed on elegant plinths, and the unusual shape of the room is reminiscent of Burges’s own interiors. The pieces are joyous in their design and playful in their detail and deserve to be celebrated.
It’s hard to imagine ever tiring of this superb permanent collection, but with five temporary exhibition spaces, an events programme for all ages and an extensive range of learning activities, the museum is offering much more.
The Higgins has put Bedford on the map.
Caroline Ikin is a former collections manager at the National Trust and now works as a writer and researcher
Project data
- Cost £5.8m
- Main funders Bedford Borough Council £3.2m; Heritage Lottery Fund £959,000; Wixamtree Trust £500,000; Bedford Charity £500,000; Monument Trust £350,000; Charles Wells £200,000; Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery £100,000
- Exhibition design Designmap
- Architect Buttress Fuller Alsop Williams
- Building contractor Borras Construction
- Quantity surveyor Tillyard
- Project management Appleyard and Trew
- M&E consultant Silcock Leedham
- Fit-out contractor The Workhaus
- Display cases Armour Systems
- Mountmaking Colin John Lindley
