By Harry Mottram: Doris Langley Moore, the Liverpool born daughter of a South African newspaper editor married in 1926 and settled in London. A visit to the V&A Museum and its costume collection sparked her interest in fashion. She started collecting colour plates of fashion as well as historic clothing and after the Second World War Doris started to look for a home for the collection.
Initially she found temporary homes for her collection at Eridge Castle, Brighton Pavilion and Bath’s Octagon Chapel but in 1963 she found a home for her collection at the National Trust owned Bath Assembly Rooms. The council and successive local authorities covering Bath held a 75 year lease from the National Trust and so in 1963 moved the fashion collection into the Assembly Rooms. When the lease ended in 2023 the Fashion Museum had to leave as the NT wanted to use the space for their own exhibitions.
The collection came with the proviso it must be available for the public to visit and access so it is currently being stored at a warehouse in Warminster at glove maker Dents ahead of its move back to Bath.
Online news group Somerset Confidential asked B&NES how much they were paying out in rent each year to store the collection but they declined to answer, saying that it was confidential information. They wrote: “A quick glance at the accounts for Dewhurst Dents plc shows that their net rents receivable rose to £146,844 in the year to 31 January 2024, up from £77,123 in the year to 31 January 2023.
“A jump of some £70,000 in the year that the collection moved into storage. Which could of course be due to other factors as well, but no-one is willing to confirm one way or the other.”
It is fair to say there is strong support for the reopening of the fashion museum in the old Post Office in late 2029 but clearly there is a cost. The council have received lottery funding from the Heritage Fund of £768,000 towards the new museum while they have an application to the National Lottery for £7.2million in 2026 but it is widely thought by observers that it will need at least £30m to complete the project.
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