The Whitaker

Sarah Gaffney-Lang, Families Editor

Visit now

The Whitaker

Haslingden Road, Rawtenstall, BB4 6RE
01706260785
  • Wednesday9:30am - 5:00pm
  • Thursday9:30am - 5:00pm
  • Friday9:30am - 5:00pm
  • Saturday9:30am - 5:00pm
  • Sunday9:30am - 5:00pm

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

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The award-winning Whitaker Gallery & Museum is a multi-purpose venue which celebrates the area’s varied and amazing heritage whilst providing a dynamic, challenging and diverse programme of events, exhibitions and education-based activities. And the cafe’s pretty good too!

What's on near The Whitaker

Tom Branfoot. Photo Eleanor Hall, Museum of the Home
LiteratureWest Yorkshire
Poetry at the Dusty Miller

Poetry at the Dusty Miller is a now regular night with invited readers, organised by Carcanet-published Carola Luther and Judith Willson in the Coiners’ Room in the Mytholmroyd pub.

Free entry
Four young female dancers in folk costumes, one looking at the camera
ActivityCathedral Quarter
Góbéfest

Góbéfest, Manchester’s original international urban folk music and dance festival, is back with a killer line up and the best of Central Europe.

Free entry
Aisla dancing and Dj'ing
ActivityAncoats
Become A Superstar DJ

Get hands on with the decks in this funk and soul superstar DJ workshop from BBC Radio 6’s Ailsa.

Free entry

Where to go near The Whitaker

Bar or Pub
The Eagle and Child

The Eagle and Child in Ramsbottom does what good pubs do best, and more.

The Happy Belly sausages ramsbottom market
Shopping Centre
Ramsbottom Food and Craft Markets

Now ten years old, this double market combines a farmers’ market and a craft fair and provides the perfect excuse to visit the picturesque town of Ramsbottom, which nestles in the Lancashire foothills to the north of Manchester.

Restaurant
Levanter Fine Foods

Helmed by chef-owners Fiona and Joe Botham, this tapas restaurant in Ramsbottom serves exclusively Spanish drinks and some of the best small plates going.

Bury
Restaurant
Colleen’s Ramsbottom

Colleen’s is a casual dining neighbourhood restaurant in the heart of Ramsbottom serving seasonal dishes.

Burnley's Singing Ringing Tree
Burnley
Tourist Attraction
Burnley’s Singing Ringing Tree

Burnley’s Panopticon, ‘Singing Ringing Tree’, is a unique musical sculpture which overlooks Burnley from its position high above the town on Crown Point. Constructed from pipes of galvanised steel stacked in layers, this Panopticon takes the form of a tree bending to the winds and harnesses the energy of those winds to produce a low, tuneful song.

Towneley Hall
Event venue
Towneley Hall

Historic house, art gallery and museum. Museum houses a variety of displays, encompassing natural history, Egyptology, local history, textiles, decorative art and regional furniture. Art gallery is focused on Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite art, “with some earlier paintings as well”.

Manchester
Event venue
Burrs Country Park

Burrs Country Park lies on the River Irwell covering an area of 36 hectares of scenic countryside, one mile northwest of Bury town centre.

The Weavers Triangle
Burnley
Tourist Attraction
The Weavers Triangle

The Weavers Triangle is a modern name for an area on the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal that was once at the heart of Burnley’s textile industry. The name was first used in the 1970s, as interest developed in preserving Burnley’s industrial heritage, and refers to the roughly triangular shape of the region.

Glassmonkey Studio
Burnley
Gallery
Glassmonkey Studio

Glassmonkey Studio is the largest glass fusing studio in the area. The studio is home to a gallery selling handmade fused glassware jewellery, art and greeting cards. They also host regular workshops for fused glass, soap making, enamelling, and silver clay jewellery making.

Gawthorpe Hall
Burnley
Tourist Attraction
Gawthorpe Hall

Affectionately referred to as the ‘Downton of the North’, Gawthorpe Hall was redesigned in the 1850s by Sir Charles Barry, designer of the Houses of Parliament and the ‘real’ Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle.

Culture Guides

Music in the North

Gigs are coming in hot this spring – from long-awaited returns to one-off happenings you’ll blink and miss if you're not careful.

Hannah Platt 'Playing Out', courtesy of Threshold, photograph by Jules Lister.
Exhibitions in the North

From city-wide art festivals to open-air sculptural installations, we have exhibitions from all around the North, both indoors and out.

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

Eclectic as ever. You'll find inventive reworkings, world-class contemporary dance and Greater Manchester's inaugural Improv Festival in our guide.

portrait of Lorsung in a dark shirt with dark hair and dark round glasses
Literature Events in the North

We've got laughs and we've got leftfield on the live literature radar this month. Something for everyone, from poets playing with form to short story writers looking long.

Classical Music in the North

Read our latest highlights from the live classical music offer in Manchester and the North, taking in a number of the region's most cherished orchestral forces and venues.