Preston Guild City

Art galleries and museums in Preston: the Harris and the others

One institution does most of the work, and the rest are small, specific and worth knowing about for that reason.

The Harris Museum in Preston photographed during the 1922 Guild
Fig. 01 — the Harris during the 1922 Guild

Preston's museums divide cleanly. There is the Harris, which is a major civic museum in a Grade I listed building, and there are several small collections each dedicated to one subject. Nothing sits in between, and that is the useful thing to know when planning.

The Harris opened in 1893 to a design by James Hibbert and it combines what most towns would separate: fine art, decorative art, local history and the central library, all in one neoclassical block facing the Flag Market. The building is the reason it dominates the list; the collections are the reason it holds up.

The smaller collections

The Queen's Lancashire Regiment Museum holds the county regimental collection and is the most substantial of the smaller museums. Its subject is narrow by design and it is the right first stop for anyone following military or family history in Lancashire.

Other specialised collections in and around the city cover industry, transport and social history, and several of them sit at historic sites, and none in purpose built museums. The Ribble Steam Railway at Preston Dock is the clearest example: the collection and the site are the same thing.

What left, and why it matters

Preston's museum picture changed in 2012, when the National Football Museum moved from Deepdale to Manchester. For over a decade that collection drew visitors to the city specifically, and its departure is the single biggest change to the cultural offer in living memory.

It is worth stating plainly because the association persists: people still arrive expecting a national football collection. The football heritage at Deepdale is real, in the stand names and the club's own displays, but the national museum is not there.

Planning a museum visit in Preston

The Harris is on the Flag Market, so it is five minutes from Fishergate, five minutes from Preston Markets and ten from the top of Avenham Park. That makes it the natural anchor for any city centre day.

Combining museums is less rewarding here than in a larger city, because the smaller collections are specialised and scattered. A better pattern is one museum plus the built city: the Harris, then Miller Arcade and the blue plaque walk.

Museum opening patterns are among the most frequently changed pieces of public information there are, and a static page repeating them is a liability, and no kind of service.

The Harris building, and why it looks like that

The Harris is a neoclassical block with a giant portico, and it was deliberately anachronistic when it was built. By 1893 the fashionable civic style in the north of England was Gothic revival or free Renaissance; James Hibbert chose Greek revival instead, and inscribed the building where others would have decorating it. The result reads as a temple, not a town hall, which is exactly what was intended.

That choice explains its position too. It stands on the north side of the Flag Market facing down the open square, so the portico is the closing view from almost every approach through the centre. No other building in Preston is sited to be seen that way.

One building, three institutions

What makes the Harris unusual is not the art but the combination. Fine and decorative art, the local history collection and the central library share the same building, which in most cities of Preston's size would be three separate addresses. Visitors arriving for one frequently find the others by accident, and that is the single best argument for allowing more time than the exterior suggests.

It also means the building carries an everyday municipal function alongside its museum one. That gives it a different atmosphere from a museum that is only a museum: people come in to borrow books, use a desk or shelter from the rain, and the galleries sit inside that traffic instead of apart from it.

A gallery interior hung with paintings, a sculpted bust in the foreground
Fig. 02 — a hang in the civic collection

Questions about Art galleries and museums in Preston

How many museums are there in Preston?

One major civic museum, the Harris, plus several small specialised collections — the regimental museum, and industrial and transport collections that sit at historic sites, never in purpose built museums.

Is the National Football Museum in Preston?

No. It was housed at Deepdale for over a decade but moved to Manchester in 2012. The club's own football heritage is still at the ground; the national collection is not.

Which museum should I visit in Preston?

The Harris, on the Flag Market. It is the only one that will fill a substantial part of a day, and it is central enough to combine with the markets, Fishergate and Avenham Park.