Leek College

I've been meaning to post some images of Leek College.  I had the pleasure of running a one day workshop with the students on the foundation degree there at the end of September.  It was a productive and enjoyable day.  Not least because of the amazing building in which the college is housed.  The Nicholson Institute was built by the silk mill owner in  the town as a college in which to train his workers.  The wonderful art rooms were used to train the workers for the town's textile mills.  There was a real sense of purpose to the building and the air was heavy with the ghosts of past students, not least the very real skeleton that hung in the corner closet (yes really!).  The 'life drawing' room houses some beautiful plasters from which students past and present can draw.  The Arts and Crafts fabric of the building included a hand painted quote from the dramatist, scientist poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

'One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable worlds.'

The whole building would make a delightful museum but makes an even more delightful, alive space in which to create.