Barnard Castle Town Council pledges £2,000 to Silver Swan celebration next Easter

A SWAN-themed extravaganza has been earmarked for Barnard Castle to wrap up anniversary celebrations at The Bowes Museum.

A rotating sculpture on Scar Top, dancing children dressed as fish and eight specially commissioned songs are

just some of the ideas on the table for the £11,600 project in the town this coming Easter.

A £2,000 grant had been due to go towards The Bowes Museum’s Christmas Festival for its 125th anniversary celebrations courtesy of the town council.

But the move to support the museum’s festive lighting was scrapped in favour of this new idea last month.

Matthew Read, from The Bowes Museum, revealed the early concept behind an “inclusive and celebratory event” based around the musuem’s 18th century silver swan.

At last month’s town council meeting, he said: “The point with the swan is it is very inward looking – maybe only 12 people can stand around and see it.

“We have already looked in at the swan – an unpopular view is the museum is too focussed inward and is intimidating and impenetrable to a lot of people.

Mr Read suggested a swan-themed community event “in the town and of the town” with eight Teesdale music groups playing eight tunes to represent the swan’s eight chimes.

Schoolchildren were also pencilled in to dress as dancing shoals of fish and encouraged to customise their own costumes.

The event would come to a crescendo with groups meeting at a “dynamic rotating sculpture” on Scar Top complete with poetry read out at the dance.

A partnership of the museum, The Witham and the TCR Hub would help run the performance alongside members of the town council. Members decided to plump for the swan event at a meeting held in private last month.

Chairwoman of the partnership committee Cllr Judi Sutherland said there was a lot of enthusiasm for something which involved the community.

“I like the idea of bringing lots of artists, performers and musical groups together – it could be a really exciting thing to do,” she added.

But town mayor Cllr Sandra Moorhouse, who is also chairwoman of the Friends of The Bowes Museum, wanted to know why the friends group and others had not been invited to offer their suggestions. She added: “I find that extremely odd – given it was the town council’s recommendation.”

Cllr Roger Peat wanted to know whether The Bowes Museum could raise the £10,000 for the event.

Musuem finance manager Richard Welsby replied: “Yes.

“We are firing out applications for all sorts of things – when I look at the content of the proposals I find it reasonably easy to write the applications,” he added.

The museum’s Silver Swan was loaned to the Science Museum, in London, during the summer as part of its robot exhibition.

Given that £2,000 of taxpayers’ money was going into the project, Cllr Moorhouse wanted reassurances about the town council’s role in the project.

“It just seems to have changed somewhat from what we said,” she added. “We cannot get it wrong.

“This is very arts based and we have to remember this is a very traditional town.”

Cllr Richard Child said: “It’s a very tight timeline.

“This is really quite ambitious given we’re going to get schoolchildren involved.”

Members eventually agreed to put in £2,000 to work in conjunction with community groups on the project.