Kettering Alfred East Art Gallery reopens after six-year £8m project
Kettering’s Alfred East Art Gallery has reopened to the public for the first time in nearly six years after the venue closed during the Covid pandemic.
Art lovers can once again enjoy the treasures held within Northamptonshire’s only purpose-built art gallery following the official opening of the refurbished space.
Closed during the 2019 lockdown, the gallery’s doors remained shut to allow a renovation project, modern extension and new secure store to be added.
The precious art collection is now back – under the protection of the newly refurbished and watertight roof.
Gallery manager Billie Stevenson said: “I’m very excited. It’s been a long time coming. There's been a few false starts, now it seems surreal.
"We’ve been working behind the scenes for a long time on different projects. The team knows the collection more than they ever have done because of the work they’ve been doing.”
Returning to the walls are well known Kettering paintings by local artists including Sir Alfred East. Ms Stevenson has worked on the opening exhibition Faces and Places with her team.
She said: “What’s been lovely about this is they have been reminded of their favourites. This exhibition is designed to show the community some of the paintings they come back time and time again to see. It’s quite a traditional exhibition – it covers the massive grand landscapes of Alfred East, portraiture of Gotch and it’s Kettering-centric.
"Every piece of art is here for a reason.”
The first exhibition back in the two main galleries celebrates home-grown talents including newly-loaned works and includes the oldest painting in the collection.
Although the gallery spaces remain the same, refurbishment work saw the walls stripped and replastered and a new art store added.
Starting out as the GLaM (Gallery, Library, and Museum) project, the roof and drainage of the Grade II listed complex failed, leaving water streaming into the building.
The library’s Collyweston slate roof refurbishment allowed the gallery roof to be renovated. The complex now boasts a ‘garden room’ and a studio space, with plans for an onsite café with outdoor terrace.
Kerry Purnell, NNC’s director of communities and leisure has overseen the project since 2021 when the unitary authority inherited the project from Kettering Borough Council.
She said: “It’s been a long time coming to get this back open. There’s been a lot of challenges with the project. It was a challenging project to get it delivered. It hasn’t been easy but we are delighted and thrilled.
“I’m hugely excited but I’m also pleased for the team. There’s been a huge amount of work going on in the background.
“It’s been a very, very interesting project. There’s been times when I wasn’t convinced certain elements of it would get over the line whether that was securing funding, the right contractors, getting the right permissions as a listed building. It hasn’t been easy, but I am thrilled."
Ms Purnell estimates the total for the project is £8m in total paid for by local taxpayers.
Visitors can look forward to shows by contemporary Kettering artists with Stella Benford’s delayed 2019 exhibition finally making it to the gallery, followed by Jack Watto who will bring his canvases to the town centre venue.
Cllr Greg Wilcox, North Northamptonshire Council’s executive member for communities and rural affairs, said: “The Alfred East Gallery has been on quite a journey over the past six years and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their patience.
"It’s absolutely fantastic for people to be able to come and visit. It’s a bright spark for Northamptonshire. Northamptonshire’s history – Kettering’s history – is so important for young people to realise where they have come from, where they can go and what they can achieve.”
Speaking about the cost of the gallery refurbishment Cllr Wilcox added: “It’s very important to spend the money to capture Northamptonshire’s history and heritage. If this wasn’t here this would be a much weaker county.”
Cllr Martin Griffiths, leader NNC, said: “It is great to see the Alfred East Gallery, with its new branding, being used as it was always intended with beautiful pieces of art now on display for everyone, both residents and businesses, to view.
“The gallery is a huge part of the wider work we are doing through the North Northamptonshire cultural masterplan and tourism strategy for the local area. The journey doesn’t stop here and we’re already looking to the next steps with the new event space and tender process for the café on site.”
From 10am today (Saturday, October 24), a special event will take place, supported by the Friends of the Art Gallery & Museum, which will showcase and celebrate the site. The event will include live music and activities for children.
As well as two exhibitions in the main gallery spaces, there are displays that show how the Kettering community continued to embrace art and creativity during the gallery’s closure period. From the Tag-a-Tile event, images of decorated Collyweston slates taken before the tiles were installed on the roof of Kettering Library. While mini-canvasses created during this summer’s KettFest, inspired by artwork from the gallery’s collection, will also be on display.
In the Kate Pierce studio, there will be a full day for young artists inspired by Golden Youth, and the 120-year-old oil painting by legendary artist Thomas Cooper Gotch, with activities including lantern decorating and jewellery crafts.
Faces and Places will run in the east gallery until Saturday, January 9, 2027 and the west gallery until the end of February 2027.
The Alfred East Gallery will be open from 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Saturday.
Funding Facts
The now-defunct Kettering Borough Council secured £3m from the Getting Building Fund, administered by South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership.
Of the £3m grant, plus a further £640,000 from Kettering Borough Council reserves and £300,000 from Northamptonshire County Council, a total of £867,000 was earmarked for internal refurbishment of the library, and another £300,000 on a new roof. A total of £1.6m was to be spent on the extension to the art gallery with another £163,000 on an internal renovation.
Issues with trees, bats and birds had be resolved but work finally got under way in July 2021, scheduled to take 12 months. Step by painful step, those 12 months became more than five years.
In March 2022 NNC councillors released a further £75,000 from capital funds because the scheme ran over budget. Another £412,000 was released by NNC in July 2022 to ensure the project carried on.
The roof renovation including tenting cost a further £4.4m.