Lytham Hall opens new Fylde Gallery to mark art collection centenary

Lytham Hall has had quite a journey. Once a house in need of serious care, the Georgian mansion set in parkland on the edge of Lytham has been steadily restored and is now one of the most rewarding days out on the Fylde coast.

The latest chapter came in 2025, when Fylde Council opened a new gallery inside the Hall's Long Gallery. The Fylde Gallery was created to mark the centenary of the Lytham St Annes Art Collection, the civic collection built up by the town over the last hundred years.

A £65,000 refurbishment turned the space into a home for exhibitions, and the inaugural show opened on 31 January 2025. It means visitors can now combine a tour of the historic house with a look at artworks that have belonged to the community for a century.

The Hall is operated by Heritage Trust North West, and its recent story is one of real transformation. A feature in the Lytham St Annes Express described a seven-year restoration that took the house from mould to gold, with visitor numbers growing from around 20,000 a year to approximately 230,000.

That effort earned national recognition. Lytham Hall shared a Historic Houses Restoration Award in 2022, a significant honour for a team that had worked for years to bring the building back into good health.

The Hall has found inventive ways to support its own upkeep, too. The Gardener's Cottage on the estate has been converted into holiday accommodation, and both the cottage and the Gatehouses can now be booked through Sykes Cottages, giving guests the chance to wake up in the grounds of a historic house.

The restoration has deep roots. Years earlier, a £2.4 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant was announced to help save the building, and the long fundraising effort since then has involved local people as well as larger funders.

Details of opening times, exhibitions at the Fylde Gallery and events in the grounds are published by Lytham Hall and Heritage Trust North West. It is well worth checking ahead and planning a visit to see how far this fine house has come.