Harewood House Trust was delighted to be among the winners at this year’s White Rose Awards hosted earlier online this evening by Welcome to Yorkshire.
2019 was a landmark year for Harewood celebrating 30 years of contemporary art, launching the Harewood Biennial with its inaugural exhibition Useful/Beautiful: Why Craft Matters curated by Hugo Macdonald, its first Make It Harewood weekend with 5,000 craft workshop spaces over just 48 hours, and an award-winning Christmas show, A Night at the Mansion created by Davy & Kristin McGuire.
Being awarded Large Visitor Attraction of the Year and gaining a Silver Arts & Culture Award comes as a huge boost to the entire team at Harewood, and asserts support from our loyal Members, visitors and funders. As an independent charity, Harewood is reliant upon this income to continue its important work inspiring creativity and enriching lives for its local Yorkshire communities and beyond. Like so many attractions, the loss of revenue this year has had a devastating impact upon the charity’s finances. This award follows recent generous funding from the Government Cultural Recovery Fund, Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund, ArtFund and Historic England, and winning an Innovation award for last year’s Christmas season at the 2020 Museums + Heritage Awards.
Harewood continues to be ambitious in its approach to re-imagining the country house – new and imaginative exhibitions and events are at the heart of what it does. Harewood wants to create unique and inspiring programmes for everyone; pro-actively seeking out artistic relationships with local partners and supporting local creatives, as well as food and trading relationships with Yorkshire-based businesses. The experience of Harewood is not just about the past but looking to the future. Harewood protects its heritage in order to share it, and creates incredible experiences for all to enjoy with families and friends.
The charitable Trust has been overwhelmed by the loyalty and support of its Members over the past 18 months, with Membership growth increasing dramatically and the Trust embedding itself ever closer within its community. In addition to striving to attain new environmental and sustainability goals, and tackling diversity and inclusion within its core objectives, the recognition of awards such as this help Harewood continue its learning programmes, work with artists and maintain its ambitious visitor experience, looking once again to the future.
Jane Marriott, Trust Director comments:
‘At such a difficult time, it is wonderful to be recognised by the panel of this year’s White Rose Awards and to receive the accolades of Large Visitor Attraction of the Year and a Silver award for Arts & Culture. As a charity, Harewood’s resources are more limited than ever in light of recent events, but our team’s spirit and ambition has not changed, nor has our Member’s and visitor’s excitement for what we do been diminished. With the invaluable support of our Trustees, we continue to reinvent the country house and what it means to people in the 21st century, to ensure that Harewood will continue to be a place for everyone to enjoy and explore.
‘Our heartfelt congratulations go out not just to all tonight’s winners, but all those who entered and engaged with audiences and visitors from far and wide to jointly celebrate this wonderful, vibrant county. It is the sum of our parts that makes this region the most exciting place to live and visit and I have no doubt we will recover, and look once more to the future, working closely together.’
The award celebrations come as Harewood is in the midst of preparations for Christmas at Harewood 2020, a change to its original plans in light of Covid-19 restrictions which have now been postponed until next year, with a new anticipated opening date of Thursday 3 December.
