You are invited to a special evening at The Bowes Museum. Join us to see the much-loved Silver Swan perform once again, following her recent conservation and repair. As valued members of our neighbouring community we’d love to share the moment with you.

The Silver Swan is a life-size, solid silver replica of a female swan and is one of the world’s finest examples of 18th-century automata. Made in the workshop of James Cox in London and first shown in his museum in 1773, she has three clockwork mechanisms and contains more than 2,000 moving parts. The Swan performed daily until 2020, when the Museum closed during the pandemic but she needed careful conservation and repair before she was able to operate again.

The work to repair the Silver Swan has been carried out by the Cumbria Clock Company and their partners, alongside the Museum’s in-house Collections team. The project has been a huge success and the Swan is ready to take centre stage once again!

Get ready for an evening that promises to ignite your imagination and leave you with cherished memories. We open our doors at 6:30pm. You will be welcomed with a glass of fizz or soft drink on arrival, there will be a chance to hear from those involved with the project, enjoy some music, explore the Museum’s picture galleries and see the Swan herself perform (across the evening we’ll have 20 min slots of performances, which will be allocated on arrival.)