The Harley Foundation — Attraction in Bassetlaw

Such a great place to visit, there's something for everyone. Large carpark, no height barrier. Farm Shop. Lovely gift shop. Exhibitions , usually art or sculptures, currently 'it's a dogs life'. Childrens art activities - great fun at the moment with a dog/human play screen. Upstairs are more sculptures, and then a room dedicated to the history of the estate, the tunnels, house, and elusive owner. The Harley Gallery, again, very interesting, houses oil paintings, silver etc. Again Free. The garden centre is fabulous. From clothing to gifts, to plants, with recently renovated greenhouses and a restaurant. Walking trails (maps available from the farm shop) from varying lengths from the carpark are a must. Cresswell Crags is easily accessible from here, with sculptures on the walking route, maybe 20 - 30 minutes at the most. The estate itself houses numerous independent businesses, worth looking at, a brewery, run distillery, cooking...

The gallery is a bit of an unexpected gem. We visited for the first time with our two small ones for the Lego exhibition they were holding.

The building itself is an impressive relatively new structure built with lots of thought to the historical location within the Welbeck Estate. This really pays off inside where the galleries are well lit and of a decent size, though by no means huge.

We especially liked the vault like doors on the lower floor gallery room, they had some real clout to them!

It was busy on our visit as it was half term and the exhibit was aimed at children, but there was enough room to mill about. The staff were pretty helpful and I guess due to busyness, you didn't get that feeling that you can do in a quiet art gallery of being constantly observed!

The attached cafe looked to be service some rather tasty sounding food, but it was very hectic so we headed to the garden...

For anyone considering displaying art: I participated in a competition. They hung the art piece in a corner behind a beverage table, out of sight. Lost the competition to some one that glued tissues to construction paper.

Staff members had mixed messages about instructions on pickup. Day 1 we were told we could pickup our piece anytime we needed. I tried, and was strictly forbidden from removing the art work from the walls until the competition was over. I then returned some time after and was lectured that I was too late for pickup, although I did finally obtain it. These interactions were remarkably rude, and unprofessional.

Initial instructions for competition stated that the pieces needed to be restrained to nothing bigger than A3, yet upon arrival there were countless A0, A1 etc. Had I known I would have done so...