Visiting Rochdale

Yesterday we went on an expedition across the Pennines, mainly to look for two buildings designed by Edgar Wood, an Arts and Crafts architect who designed several buildings in Huddersfield, but who came from Middleton, near Manchester, and did most of his work in that area.  We didn't have much success in finding them - one we could not find at all, and the other (a pub) was boarded up and had apparently been closed for a long time. But the journey was not wasted.  We visited a cemetery (one of J's interests) and two war memorials (ditto).  One was the splendid Rochdale memorial designed by Lutyens.  Those flags, folks, are painted stone.

Rochdale War Memorial

We also visited the Rochdale Museum and Art Gallery, which is inexplicably called Touchstones.  (What's wrong with "Museum & Art Gallery"? At least people know what that means.)   It's housed in a purpose-built Art Nouveau building with some beautiful stained glass.

Rochdale Museum & Art Gallery

 And we found some knitting too - over the entrance to the museum was a stripy piece of knit graffiti, made by artist  Sophie Horton for an exhibition of  contemporary knitting and crochet. I'm sorry to have missed the exhibition, but this piece (called Front Cover - get it?)  has been left in place. The Touchstones blog has a post about Sophie Horton installing the knitting, and her ideas in designing it.   

Front Cover - knit graffiti over the entrance

There is also a knitting circle called Knitty Gritty based at Touchstones that meets in the cafe once a month. I love their publicity photo - that cake looks good enough to eat.