Above: Auckland Tower and Visitor Centre, Bishop Auckland (Photograph: David Rogers, CC BY-SA 2.0via Wikimedia Commons)
You may not have heard of Bishop Auckland. A little market town about ten miles south-west of Durham, it had historic significance as the seat of that city’s bishops, but fell on hard times after the decline of the local coal mining industry in the late twentieth century. In 2012 something miraculous happened. The Auckland Project was born. Money poured in, venues were created, prizes won. If you want a feel-good success story about how culture can regenerate, and an eclectic and endlessly interesting pick-n-mix of things to see, Bishop Auckland is the place to go.
The Auckland Project is really disparate collection of separate projects. A visitor centre in the main street of the town acts as a focal point, both practically – it’s where you can buy your tickets, shop for souvenirs, and get a grip on local history with a free display (though sadly not have a coffee) – and visually. It is topped by a thirty-five metre high tower, complete with viewing platform which lets you get the lie of the land and gives you an instant sense of the high-spec and complex nature of the whole Project. The tower initially looks like a modernist fish-out-of-water in the low rise, traditional architecture of the town, but its oddity makes you realise how varied and interesting the rest of the buildings are. It could be a pit-head from an old mine, with its weathered grey exterior looking on first glance like steel, but it is actually constructed from wood: when you know that you start thinking about Medieval siege towers. The interior is warm in tone and further softened by painted patterning, bright colours and naturalistic designs on white, which resonate throughout your visit, from tapestries to tiles, from painted still lifes to living flowers. Clever. There’s a lot more to it than you think and gives just a hint of the variety that is to come.
From the visitor centre you fan out to whatever takes your fancy. We headed first to the Bishop’s Palace, reached through a grand eighteenth century gateway, and situated in an extensive deer park with plenty of walks and beautiful views out to the countryside beyond. There is a recently renovated walled garden, terraced out of a steep slope, perfectly designed to catch the slanting autumn sunlight and complete with a - perhaps slightly too modern - greenhouse which when we visited was full of ripening black tomatoes (more of the unexpected). The garden needs time to mature, but the bones are there to be enjoyed and like everything about the Project, it looks impeccably maintained. The Bishop’s Palace itself is imposing stone, an impressive reminder of the time when the Prince Bishops of Durham, as they were titled until the 1830s, held more than just spiritual power. It was the impending sale of the palace by the Church of England in 2012 which kick-started the whole Project, though part of the building remains leased by the bishopric, retaining that historic connection.
Inside, there is one of the largest private chapels in Europe – in what was the original Great Hall of the Medieval castle. The chapel, like most of the interior, reflects eighteenth century renovations, with a restrained rococo Gothic, and pastel colours. The principal reason to visit is to see the dining room with its collection of twelve Francisco de Zurbaran paintings of Jacob and his Sons, bought as a set in 1756. Zurbaran’s painting has a restrained power – darkly rich colour and figures who stride across minimal landscapes like giants - which is all the more potent for seeing these works together.
Quite frankly, I would have left Bishop Auckland happy at this point, but it was only the start. The Bishop’s Palace also now houses a Faith Museum, recently opened in 2023 and the only one of its kind in the UK. Six thousand years of faith. It might sound a tad stuffy, possibly only for the faithful, but a combination of good displays, informative labels and a hugely varied range of objects makes this a great visit. This is faith in the broadest sense of the word, and you have everything from the ancient to the dazzlingly contemporary. I was genuinely surprised by how long I spent in there, what I discovered and how much I enjoyed it.
Back out onto the main street, we headed to Project venue number three, the Mining Art Gallery. Small, unassuming, personal, it quietly and unsentimentally tells the region’s history through paintings by and of miners. This is not a mining museum, of which there are many in the UK, but an art gallery, so don’t go expecting Davey lamps and underground reconstructions. In fact, the tokenistic, echoing drip which follows you round to suggest damp, dark tunnels, is just annoying. There are a few earlier paintings, but most are from the last hundred years or so, many produced by amateur artists, and they make sobering viewing in their depiction of a grim landscape and hard graft. There is perhaps an over- dependence on a few artists, notably the Kitchen Sink realism of Norman Cornish and the rather more varied and variable output of Tom McGuinness. The Gallery also feels a bit cramped, with small rooms and odd changes of levels. It deserves a bigger location and a grander vision. A section deals with the 1984 miners’ strike and the ensuing closures: perhaps too political for some tastes with Bob Olley’s stunning Orgreve After Guernica, a magic realist interpretation of the infamous clash between miners and police. Tellingly, though, this was the busiest place of the day.
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Across the street, situated in an old bank, lies the real reason I rocked up to Bishop Auckland in the first place: the Spanish Gallery. The whole Project has been largely bank-rolled by Jonathan Ruffer, businessman turned philanthropist and passionate collector of Spanish art. It was his desire to save the bishop’s Zurbarans which led to him saving the palace. And it was his desire to showcase his incredible collection which led to the creation of this beautiful, bespoke exhibition space. Over three floors you get the best range of Golden Age Spanish painting that you are likely to see outside the Iberian Peninsula – a combination of genuine, top-notch gems, like an El Greco Crucifixion with drips of blood so life-like you want to wipe them away, and the breath-takingly unexpected: there is a small, painfully fragile, painted sculpture of Christ on the Cross by Luisa Roldan, displayed as if it hovers miraculously in air. It is not all great art. There are plenty of studio copies of famous works and a lot of also-ran painters. The top floor is devoted to reproductions of Spanish interiors, including a spectacular marble tomb from Toledo. If that sounds a bit kitsch, I will admit I was sceptical myself, but it works, partly because the whole gallery is displayed with such conviction – Ruffer’s own labels are defiantly un-curatorial - partly because you so genuinely feel immersed in Spanish culture by the time you get there.
The Auckland Project is like nothing else I’ve visited. Sprawling, vague, varied. It provides a great day out, with quite literally something for every interest and taste, and if you buy an all-in ticket, it provides decent value for money. It also makes you feel good: proof that philanthropy is alive and well, that culture can lead to regeneration, that people can reconnect with their town and their history. But I fear for its long-term viability: the day we went, we were the only people in most of the displays of the Spanish Gallery, apart from wonderfully enthusiastic volunteers. In the absence of any major temporary exhibition space, it is difficult to see how they can attract repeat visitors. And there is the difficulty of attracting visitors at all when you have such a bland and undescriptive name, and an untouristy location. Bishop Auckland is an obvious trip out from Durham or Newcastle and within easy reach of Northumberland with its famous coastline and National Park. It would also make a good combined visit with that other great cultural outlier, Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. But is that enough?
All venues of the Auckland Project are open 10.30 - 4 except Mondays and Tuesdays.
You can buy separate admission to each venue but for better value an Unlimited Pass lasts for a year and gives repeat admission to everything for £27 (online price).
Bishop Auckland has a train station. If travelling by car, be warned that there is no designated parking for the Auckland Project.
Full details: https://aucklandproject.org/visit-us/ where you can also find information on other local attractions.
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Catriona Miller is an independent art historian and writer on art based in the UK. She has taught and lectured on all aspects of art history and is currently researching women artists in British collections and issues of nationalism and identity in nineteenth-century landscape painting.
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