Entrance Porch, Cliffe Castle

Cliffe Castle, our local heritage museum. Is a grand, Victorian, neo-gothic building, built between 1828 and 1833. Originally named Cliffe Hall, it was bought in 1848 by the Butterfields, a textile manufacturing family, who extensively transformed the building by adding towers, a ballroom and conservatories and renamed it Cliffe Castle. Helped by Sir Bracewell Smith, a local benefactor, the building and grounds were bought by Keighley Corporation in 1949. In 1955, Sir Bracewell Smith further paid for the conversion of the house for public use, turning it into a building and art gallery for the people of Keighley. Among many wonderful possessions, the museum owns and exhibits some of the earliest William Morris stained glass in the country. It is now, of course, owned and run by Bradford Council and photography inside is strictly forbidden.