A QUILT owned by famous Daleswoman Hannah Hauxwell will now have a new home in a County Durham museum.

The Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle, has announced it has won a quilt made by Hannah Hauxwell’s grandmother at auction.

The quilt, made by Elizabeth Bayles, will become part of the museum’s North Country quilt collection.

It was one of twenty two lots, thirteen of which were quilts, from Hannah's estate that came under the hammer at Tennants Auctioneers on Saturday, February 9.

Joanna Hashagen, curator of fashion and textiles, said: “I felt strongly that this particular quilt is very important, both artistically and historically. It is a very attractive colourful ‘strippy’ quilt of printed cottons, which has then been quilted with traditional patterns and, very unusually, signed with the initials E.B. This stands for Elizabeth Bayles, who lived in the Hunderthwaite area of Teesdale all her life.

“The Bowes Museum does not have an example like this, we have ‘strippy’s’ made of plain fabric, usually red and white. I am delighted that private donations have meant that we can keep one of these quilts that belonged to Hannah Hauxwell in Teesdale.”

Hannah shot to fame in the 1972 Yorkshire TV documentary, ‘Too Long a Winter’, about her life at Low Birk Hatt Farm in Baldersdale without electricity or running water. She moved to Cotherstone in 1988.

Her executors have donated a large framed photograph of Hannah standing in front of High Force to The Bowes Museum. It is signed and dated by the cameraman who filmed her for Yorkshire TV.