Exhibition's tribute to landmark Teesdale castle which was blown up

SIX years of research has culminated in a major exhibition of a lost Teesdale landmark.

Streatlam Castle, the home of The Bowes Museum founders John and Josephine Bowes, was blown to smithereens in the 1950s leaving not a trace of the former stately home.

Now the museum is celebrating the once famous building by displaying items associated with it.

The exhibition is being curated by Jonathan Peacock, who first began research into Streatlam Castle as part of a project for the Friends of The Bowes Museum six years ago.

Research continued during a project with the Northumberland Gardens Trust – from that came the idea of holding the exhibition as part of the museum’s 125th anniversary. Mr Peacock said: “This is a marvellous opportunity to reunite some major pieces from Glamis Castle, also owned by the Bowes family, including items not usually in the public domain.”

These pieces include works of art, paintings, furniture and silver.

He explained that although the main exhibition will take place in room 31, where he previously curated an exhibition to celebrate Cockfield surveyor Jeremiah Dixon, throughout the museum existing items from the castle are also on display.

Among them are horse racing trophies that were won by John Bowes as well as art works that hung in the castle and a unique mug which celebrates John Bowes’ entry in parliament. Many of the items can be accessed with a Smartify application on a smartphone. The application works by using facial-recognition-like software to identify works of art and gives more information about it.

Mr Peacock said: “Smartify can be used in all the major London museums, but as far as I know we are the only museum outside of London that uses it.”

The information given through Smartify is more detailed than the display cards in the museum and has been gleaned from information that Mr Peacock picked up during his research. This might include details such as when a piece was bought and how much it cost.

In a unique experience visitors will be allowed into room 17, which is used as a store and not usually open to the public.

The ceiling comes directly from the castle, which will give visitors direct insight into what at least a part of the castle look like.

The remains of the castle, just three miles from the museum, were destroyed in a series of huge explosions on March 29 1959. The great mansion, a shadow of its former self, had become unsafe and the then owner invited the Territorial Army to use it for demolition practice.

That exercise completed, only a pile of rubble remained as evidence of the house and castle that had stood on the site for more than 600 years, 500 of those in the ownership of the Bowes family.

The home where the late Queen Mother, patron of the museum friends group for 40 years, enjoyed childhood visits as the then Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, had been obliterated.

And yet, not every trace had been erased.

One of the star items in the exhibition is a notebook produced by the artist J M W Turner, dated 1817 (when John Bowes was just six years old), which is now part of the Tate London collection. So proud of the grand and impressive castle was John’s father, the 10th Earl of Strathmore, that he called on Turner, who was visiting nearby Raby Castle, to take him to Streatlam, where the artist produced accurate drawings and sketches for the notebook.