The collection on display

The recently renovated Champney Treasure House now features the brand-new museum exhibition Resurrecting Ancient Egypt: A Monumental Yorkshire Journey. This exhibition has been designed and curated by Egyptologist Professor Joann Fletcher and is touring from Barnsley Museums. 

The exhibition focusses on a series of stunning black and white photographs of Yorkshire architecture with Egyptian influences as chosen by Joann. The photographs by Huddersfield-based duo Kyte Photography take the viewer on a journey through the four corners of Yorkshire: there are locations which may be familiar including the follies in the grounds of Castle Howard and the columns and carvings of Temple Mill, a former flax mill in Leeds.

Photographs of lesser-known buildings can also be found throughout the exhibition, many of which are quirky and intriguing, such as a reservoir valve house in the form of an Egyptian mausoleum above Hebden Bridge. Monuments to mining disasters and pandemics, including the 1849 Hull cholera epidemic in which 1860 people died, are some of the most poignant structures.

To complement the exhibition there are displays of Georgian ceramics, Art Deco jewellery, Egyptian-themed advertisements, and decorative arts kindly on loan from the Egyptomania Museum. These everyday objects demonstrate the public’s fascination with Egypt, inspired by discoveries of wonders such as the tomb of Tutankhamun, and how this was used to market goods as diverse as face powder, whisky, builders’ plaster and even motorbikes.