The exhibition runs from 24 July to 3 November and is open from Wednesday to Sunday each week.
This special exhibition will feature the Shuttleworth Accounts, which comprise nine manuscript steward's house and farm accounts covering almost 40 years, 1582-1621. They record the living costs of the Shuttleworth household at Smithills Hall, prices for the construction of Gawthorpe Hall, 1600-1605, and the household's daily income and expenditure thereafter.
The accounts, found in a chest at Gawthorpe during renovation work, were selectively transcribed and published by the Chetham Society in the 1850s.They provide an almost complete record of the costs of building one of the finest Elizabethan houses in the north (attributable to Robert Smythson). Such detailed accounts, showing costs of labour and materials, are a rare survival in this period.
In a national context they have significance as a unique record - providing detailed accounts over many consecutive years - and a valuable resource to support study and research in several areas including palaeography, dialect, and linguistic development, food history, agriculture, architecture and anthropology. They allow comparison with records from other parts of the country, adding to our knowledge of the social and economic history of late Elizabethan/early Stuart England.
The images show details of the account books before and during conservation. Courtesy of Lancashire Archives.
