The Bowes Museum
Local highlightFrench chateau housing the Silver Swan automaton.
The Bowes Museum looks like a French château dropped into Barnard Castle, which is more or less what its founders John and Joséphine Bowes intended. It opened in 1892 and holds a serious collection of fine and decorative art, but the star turn is the eighteenth-century Silver Swan — a life-size mechanical automaton that preens and dips to catch a fish, set running once a day. There’s an admission charge. It’s an easy walk from the town’s Black Bull.
