Abbot Hall Art Gallery, just across the courtyard from the Museum of Lakeland Life, is also owned by the Lakeland Arts Trust. It has the reputation of being one of the finest small art galleries in the country. The collections are housed in an 18th century Georgian villa, built on the banks of the River Kent in Kendal and just across from the Museum of Lakeland Life.

Since Abbot Hall was opened in 1962, both it's collections and the reputation of the exhibition programme have continued to grow. Today the gallery has a very fine collection of British Art, including important key works by such artists as Romney, Turner, Ruskin, Schwitters, Ben Nicholson and Frank Auerbach. In recent years exhibitions of national importance have been shown at Abbot Hall, with Lucian Freud in 1996 and Bridget Riley in 1998/9.

As well as Fine Art, the collections include furniture from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, objets d'art, craft work and the applied arts. Much of this is on public display at Blackwell.

For further information about Abbot Hall, please go to http://www.abbothall.org.uk