LONDON.- Cotton to Gold: Extraordinary Collections of the Industrial North West is the fourth exhibition in the hugely successful Winter Exhibition Programme at Two Temple Place. This February, the magnificent and eccentric mansion has been transformed into a casket for the exquisite treasures of an extraordinary group of Lancashire magnates. As the cotton mills boomed, bringing development and deprivation hand in hand, this group of prominent industrialists privately, and sometimes secretively, poured their wealth into some of the finest and most astonishing collections in the country. Exceedingly rare Roman coins, priceless medieval manuscripts, Turner watercolours, Tiffany glass, Japanese prints, Byzantine icons, ivory sculptures and even preserved beetles and a Peruvian mummy.

Get lost amongst the treasure and the taxidermy as Cotton to Gold seeks out the stories behind these characters and what motivated them to give it all away. Discover their complicated relationship with the fast-developing world in which they lived and ask yourself are times really so different.

Cotton to Gold is presented in partnership with three publicly owned museums in the North West (Lancashire): Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Haworth Art Gallery (Accrington) and Towneley Hall (Burnley).

“To have our stunning collections shown at London’s beautiful Two Temple Place, where visitors can discover these magnificent objects for themselves, is an unexpected thrill. We rarely lend our collections in such volume, in fact they have never travelled together before – making this a truly unique exhibition.” Paul Flintoff, Museum Manager, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

Two Temple Place, a spectacular neo-Gothic mansion on London’s Victoria Embankment, is owned and run by the charity the Bulldog Trust. Chief Executive of the Bulldog Trust, Mary Rose Gunn says: “We are all excited to work with such exceptional collections from the North West and cannot wait to see them on display at Two Temple Place. It is a privilege to present such outstanding objects to the public.”