Our History

Les Howis, a professional bowyer, had for some years run a craft workshop in Cuckney village on the Welbeck estate where, as Marksman Archery, a small team made modern laminated bows by hand for the growing sport of competitive archery. A competition archer himself, Mr Howis also had considerable experience as a professional building contractor. He observed that as a result of the difficult years of the ’40s and ’50s, much of the historic building stock across the estate had become dilapidated through unavoidable neglect. Mr Howis suggested to the 7th Duke of Portland that if he might be granted a lease on the Old Laundry, then threatened with demolition, he would convert it into a house for himself and his family, with an adjacent workshop for his team of bow makers. The Duke agreed, a lease was granted in 1969, and during the course of renovation work he was happy to declare that the building was being transformed into ‘a little palace’. Further proposed demolitions were halted as a consequence of this success in finding a new use for a redundant building in Welbeck Village.

The first significant grant relating to a specific craft was made to John Makepeace, distinguished designer and maker of furniture then at Parnham House, Dorset, whose own educational charity received £10,000 in November 1978. In many ways, Makepeace’s philosophy as a furniture maker defined the ethos which was to underlie the future work of the Harley Foundation. In his own words: ‘ I am constantly searching for more eloquent concepts for furniture. My objective is to achieve freer, lighter, stronger and more sculptural forms better suited to their function and more expressive of what is unique about each commission. My passion is to create masterpieces that enrich people’s lives and the language of furniture.’ Clearly, this is in the spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement, though Makepeace suggests that his creations should qualify as individual, even unique works of art, rather than hand-made objects capable of repetition, the usual attribute of a craft object. Be that as it may, to quote from a Victoria and Albert Museum publication, the Arts and Crafts movement was ‘born of ideals. It grew out of a concern for the effects of industrialisation: on design, on traditional skills and on the lives of ordinary people. In response, it established a new set of principles for living and working. It advocated the reform of art at every level and across a broad social spectrum, and it turned the home into a work of art.’ These values lie close to the heart of the Harley Foundation.

On the establishment of the Harley Foundation in 1978, Les Howis was appointed its first Consultant and administrator, and a series of building projects was begun to provide craft studios and workshops within the walls of the 5th Duke of Portland’s great, abandoned Kitchen Garden. The first workshops were built in the Tan Gallop, a ‘corridor’ for the training of race horses forming the northern boundary of the walled gardens. A final building project undertaken by Mr. Howis was a group of smaller workshops in a free-standing brick-built block under a conventional pitched tile roof. Les Howis who had been in failing health for some time, died in August 1986 during this building campaign. When the West Workshops were opened in 1987 they were dedicated to his memory. Derek Adlam who had assisted Mr. Howis during this period was appointed Consultant in his place. In due course the Millennium was marked by the completion of the East Workshops, a large range of new studios designed by the distinguished architect John Outram.

The new charity initially set out as a grant making enterprise. One of its earliest beneficiaries was the newly-founded Welbeck Estates Brass Band which in September 1979 received the first of a series of donations for the purchase of a full complement of instruments, uniforms and so on. In encouraging ‘banding’, the Foundation was supporting a cultural and social activity of special significance in the Midlands and north of England. Amateur musicians joining the band were drawn not only from the estate but the surrounding area, and lessons were offered to young beginners. This was, in effect, a revival of the Welbeck Abbey Brass Band founded by the 6th Duke of Portland in 1888, the year, perhaps not by coincidence, of the first display of new craft work by the important and influential Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London.

Since 1982 when a Harley Foundation workshop was first occupied, the foundation has enabled a large number of makers working in a wide range of craft disciplines to receive its support and encouragement. Studio tenants benefit from purpose built, high quality premises with good natural light, environmental controls and modern services. Rents are moderate and subsidised by the Foundation. Less tangible but equally important has been the creation of a community of makers who give informal support to each other, all with similar personal ambitions and having common problems of running small businesses in a challenging world. Not least, the environment of Welbeck provides security and the advantage of working in an area of considerable natural beauty. Since 1982, occupants have included makers of furniture, ceramics, tapestries, church pipe-organs, archery bows, textiles, paper, papier-mâché, ironwork, sporting rifles, guitars, silverware, jewellery, blown and heat-formed glass, knitting, harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, mechanical watches, clocks, sculptures, graphic art, graphic design, fireworks and floral art. Studios have also been established for the conservation and restorations of paintings, clocks, antique textiles and modern pianos.

In the late 1980s, as the number of workshops and the craft community grew, it became clear the Harley Foundation lacked a public face. Its work seemed a well kept secret. The idea of a public gallery was first suggested by a group of established licensees, though initially there was no clarity as to how it would be run, by whom, whether exclusively for the studio occupants’ benefit, or to have a broader educational function, nor how costs would be met. Despite these concerns, one precondition was clear: it should be easily accessible to the public. This immediately limited possibilities, as Welbeck then carefully preserved its privacy. In 1982 one area had, however, been opened to the public when the Dukeries Garden Centre (now Notcutts) was launched in the western section of the 5th Duke of Portland’s walled gardens. It was a stroke of good fortune that adjacent to the garden centre’s car park was the disintegrating ruin of the Duke’s gasworks which had once lit the Tan Gallop.

In May 1986 the trustees began the process of converting the old gasworks into a public art gallery. It needed an imaginative eye to see in the piles of rubble, filth and disintegrating sheds a facility that would one day welcome over 100,000 visitors annually. That eye belonged to local architect Leo Godlewski ARIBA. The first brief was for an outline scheme based on the ruins, to provide ‘a display centre and lecture room with storage facilities.’ The originality and quality of the initial submission so intrigued the Foundation’s trustees that a long dialogue began. A succession of increasingly complex proposals was then presented, considered by the trustees, and returned for further elaboration. This process continued until April 1989 when the production of a final design together with an architectural model prompted trustee William Parente’s comment ‘This is far too good not to do’.

Local authority planning permission was received in 1989, and at Leo Godlewski’s suggestion, the trustees decided to build the new gallery by employing direct labour under his personal supervision. The great strength of this method was absolute control over the quality of building work which, at every level was very high. Central to the design were references to the industrial origins of the building, and employment of traditional construction techniques. Although in every sense a modern building, it strongly reflects 19th century arts and crafts ideals — the building is a work of outstanding craftsmanship in its own right. Opened to the public in May 1994, in 1995 the Harley Gallery received the recognition of Nottinghamshire’s first Civic Trust Award for Architecture.