This year, the Friends of the Manor House are celebrating their Fiftieth anniversary with an exhibition showing the many and varied contributions they’ve made over the years, from purchases of art and equipment, to organising a continuing programme of concerts and lectures.

As part of the celebrations, they commissioned a ‘Mini Manor House’, a doll house version of the Manor House. The process started with a discussion about an appropriate gift to mark the anniversary and a trip by members of the Friends to Cartwright Hall to look at the ‘Arab Weavers House’ – a dolls house inspired by a painting on display there ‘An Arab Weaver’ by Armand Point. The Friends were very enthusiastic, and agreed to fund the creation of the ‘Mini’ Manor House.

As part of the project we also created a set of inhabitants based on records from the 1901 census so that visitors can use them to interact with the ‘mini’ Manor House. IlkleyGrammar School sixth-formers are working to research some of these residents, and will be sharing what they’ve discovered of the Manor House’s history with local Primary school, All Saints.

The ‘Mini’ Manor House was commissioned from Roger Butler, a skilled artist who has now made his very first Dolls House, and used information provided by museum staff and the Friends of the Manor House to create it. We’re very happy with the result!

It was formally presented to the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Cllr Khadim Hussain to accept on behalf of the museum at the exhibition opening in June. Now, in pride of place downstairs at the Manor House, we look forward to seeing more of our visitors interact with it.