Object of the Month: June 2025
Patience Arnold Doll’s House Museum, Ambleside
Summer is here, bringing ever more tourists to soak up the sun in the fells. This month we’re remembering a beloved Ambleside tourist attraction of years past with this book about Patience Arnold’s Doll’s House Museum.
Patience Arnold (1901-1992) was born in Royston in South Yorkshire, but she spent most of her life in Lytham St Annes in Lancashire. A talented artist, she won a scholarship to train at the Harris School of Art in Preston, and she later became a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.
Arnold began her artistic career illustrating the children’s page in Manchester newspaper the Daily Dispatch. Childhood and fantasy were her main interests, and she gained national recognition by illustrating books and greeting cards.
Patience was an active member of the Lytham St Annes Art Society and served as President on twice in 1938/39 and 1953/55. In 1943 she ran an art exhibition in aid of the Red Cross with fellow society member Phyllis Hibbert.
When she moved to Ambleside in 1967, Arnold set up a new studio in the village and joined the Lakes Artist Society. She is remembered for her extensive collection of dolls, doll’s houses and toys, and in 1980 she opened her hillside cottage, near the junction of Kirkstone Road and North Road, Ambleside, to the public.
Her friends Miss Kirk and Miss Moffat ran the museum whilst Arnold got on with her watercolours. Her collection included fourteen doll’s houses, dating back to Victorian times, alongside toy forts, model farms and many dolls.
Patience Arnold died aged 90 in 1991. Twelve of her sketch books, dating from the mid-1940s, are held at Lancashire County Council Archives, and The Armitt holds a small collection of her artworks and photographs in our archive.
Learn more about Ambleside’s history as a tourist destination at The Armitt, open 10am to 5pm from Tuesday to Saturday.
Sources:
- The Armitt Collection
- The Ambleside Oral History Group archives
- The Lytham St Anne’s Art Collection: Woman Sketching by Patience Arnold
