Bury Art Gallery, Museum + Archives
About us
At Bury Art Gallery, Museum + Archives you'll find world-famous Victorian paintings, challenging contemporary art, mysterious objects and fascinating documents from Bury's past in a distinctive Edwardian building that is a work of art in itself.
The art gallery was specially built to house the Wrigley Collection, over two hundred oil paintings, watercolours, prints and ceramics collected by local paper manufacturer Thomas Wrigley. His three children gave them to the town in 1897 to be enjoyed by all.
The oil paintings include Turner's Calais Sands, Landseer's The Random Shot, Constable's Hampstead Heath and Clausen's Spring Morning: Haverstock Hill. Successive curators have added to Wrigley's legacy. There are 20th century paintings by artists such as Pasmore and Burra, and a growing selection of contemporary artists.
Changing exhibitions
Our programme of temporary exhibitions offers something for everyone. In the gallery, visitors can experience the best of local, regional, national and international art, photography and craft. In the museum, visitors can enjoy a variety of themed displays and exhibitions looking at Bury's past lives and the their relationship to the present day. For details of current exhibitions, please see the:
The Home Front exhibition returns to explore civil defence and is part of our schools partnership with the East Lancs Railway. In WWII, soldiers and civilians struggled daily to manage the situation forced upon them by enemy action.
The Art Gallery and Museum has a wide-ranging programme of activities and events to accompany the exhibitions and collections. For information about these, please see
Bury MBC's What's On Guide or click on the link above.
Visitor Information
Admission FREE
Opening times for the art gallery and museum are as follows:
Tuesday - Friday: 10am - 5pm, Saturday: 10am - 4.30pm.
- We are closed Sunday, Monday and Bank Holidays (unless otherwise advertised)
Details of the archives service can be accessed on the Archives Service webpage.
How to get here
You'll find us in the centre of Bury, just across Kay Gardens from the Mill Gate shopping centre and 50 yards from the Bus/Tram Interchange.
Metrolink trams run every 6 minutes from Manchester city centre to Bury Interchange (journey time 25 minutes). There are Metrolink services from Piccadilly station, Altrincham and Eccles into the centre of Manchester.
There are also frequent bus services connecting Bury Interchange to the local area.
There is on-street 'pay and display' parking around Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archives building (maximum stay 2 hours). Alternatively, follow signs for one of Bury's longer stay 'pay and display' car parks nearby.
Join our mailing list
If you wish to receive up to date information on future events, exhibitions and activities at Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archives, then join our mailing list. You can either telephone, complete the online join the mailing list form, e-mail or write to us - providing your name, address and/or e-mail address. Alternatively, you can fill in a form when you next visit. Your details are used for Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archives mailing list only.
Contact Us
If you would like further information, please contact the Front of House Team:
Telephone: 0161 253 5878
Fax: 0161 253 5915
E-mail: artgallery@bury.gov.uk
Write to: Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archives
Moss Street
Bury
BL9 0DR
Collections
The staff at Bury Art Gallery + Museum are continuously working to develop exciting new exhibitions and events, alongside this they also work very hard to develop access to the collections. The curatorial team have been involved in a project that has culminated in the creation of a 'NICE Paintings' website, which contains nearly 8,000 records and over 2,500 images from 200 museums across the UK. This is the first phase of the National Inventory Research Project's aim of creating a searchable illustrated inventory of all 22,000 pre-1900 Continental European oil paintings in the UK's public collections. To see the works featured from Bury's collection please see the NICE Paintings site.
Family friendly
Children and their carers are welcome and we're developing new family friendly activities all the time. Look out for the activities in the museum and gallery such as the 'Picture Bags', which are all free to use. We run workshops every Saturday and during the school holidays, for information about these workshops and activities for children see the:
Educational Visits
Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archive is a fabulous learning resource and is the ideal place for a group visit. We offer workshops to school and college covering a range of topics and themes. The worshops include a range of activities from practical art activities to object handling. We also run teacher INSET relating to the collections and exhibitions. For further information about our education services contact Sarah Evans on 0161 253 6048.
Teachers and group leaders can borrow loans boxes of historic objects on themes including Victorian Domestic Items, World War II and Toys. For more information or to book a loans box, please contact us on 0161 253 7047.
Other Gallery and museum services
Gallery and museum staff can give you information about your own treasures and how to care for them - paintings, ceramics, historic objects (sorry, we can't give valuations). Contact the Front of House Team to make an appointment.
The Bury Art Gallery, Museum and Archives building was created through the generosity of local papermaker Thomas Wrigley and developed by further gifts to the collections. The gallery and museum still offer opportunities for businesses and local people to help enhance the collections, events and exhibitions. Staff are actively collecting contemporary art, works relating to the Wrigley Collection and historic objects from Bury's Six Towns. Contact us on 0161 253 5878 if you have something you think might benefit our collections.
Businesses can benefit from a link to one of Bury's most popular cultural organisations by hiring one of our spaces for corporate events or by sponsoring an exhibition. For further information contact us on 0161 253 5878.
