In March 2021, with support from The V&A Purchase Fund and a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over £5,000, the North Craven Building Preservation Trust were able to secure the Horner Collection, a group of almost 2,000 photographs taken by the Horner family who ran a photography studio in Settle. These photographs captured the changing faces and places of Settle and the surrounding areas for nearly a hundred years and are now part of the collection at The Folly. For the first time these images, which chronicle life in Settle from the Victorian era into the 20th century, will be available for the public to access. They are a real gift to the local community, and to anyone with an interest in researching the history of Settle and the surrounding areas.
This access was made possible by a £50,000 Reimagine grant from the Art Fund, which the North Craven Building Preservation Trust used to set up the Through A New Lens project allowing them to research, describe, digitise and display the Horner Collection in a permanent exhibition at The Folly. This involved a dedicated team of volunteers working alongside a consultant photographic historian to catalogue the photographs, scan them, and identify any conservation issues. An online catalogue of the photographs is now available for use by researchers, family historians and members of the public alike.
When the project began, the museum team estimated around 1,000 glass plate and film negatives were contained in the collection. During the digitisation process, they discovered that it’s just over 2,000! The images capture historic moments from construction of Giggleswick School Chapel during Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, contrast local farming landscapes with those dedicated to industry, and capture the crowds at Settle Station as volunteers left to join Kitchener’s army in 1915, not to mention local weddings, fairs and community events, which all feature in the collection.
A view of a line of early cars in front of the Shambles in Settle Market Square
The process of re-housing, scanning and cataloguing has been completed by a dedicated team of volunteers, under the guidance of Damian Hughes, a photographic historian.
The Horner exhibition opened in September 2024 and will run at least until the end of 2025. A permanent exhibition exploring the collection in more detail is planned in the future.
The online collection is free to access and can be found online here.