Membership
Your support helps us employ four dedicated Conservation Advisers who travel across England and Wales giving expert advice on planning applications affecting Georgian buildings and gardens. Quite often, especially with buildings listed Grade II, we are the only voice speaking up for a threatened part of our heritage. Membership also includes:
- Annual Georgian Group Journal
- Twice-yearly magazine
- Access to member events including lectures, walks and country visits
Young Georgian
Annual membership for under-35s.
The Young Georgians organise additional events.
Individual
Individual membership is for one person.
Annual and lifetime membership options are available.
Joint
Joint membership is for two people.
Annual and lifetime membership options are available.
Events
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£3 members, £5 non-members To coincide with the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death, this lecture will review Sir John Soane’s interest in Napoleon Bonaparte. A select but
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£3 members, £5 non-members
To coincide with the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death, this lecture will review Sir John Soane’s interest in Napoleon Bonaparte. A select but significant collection of Napoleonica at Sir John Soane’s Museum is described within a dedicated portion of Soane’s 1832 guidebook, Description of the House and Museum... The most notable examples can be seen in Soane’s Breakfast Room, where a density of such items forms a shrine of sorts. And Soane collected an array of other items related to Napoleon, including commemorative bronze medals, and up to fifty books. But what can explain Soane’s interest in Napoleon? At first sight it appears so heavily at odds with his position as an architect to the English establishment. Soane had worked for the majority of William Pitt’s political circle and was Architect to the Bank of England and the Palace of Westminster. Napoleon may have been painted by the British press as the bogeyman of Europe, but Soane was capable of greater subtlety. As a self-made man, Soane appreciated Napoleon’s rise from a lowly Lieutenant to a mighty Emperor. Furthermore, he admired Napoleon’s efforts to improve the architectural and cultural fabric of Paris, which he visited as soon as peace allowed in 1814. To Soane, the Musée Napoleon (now known as the Louvre) highlighted the paucity of public collections in Britain. There is an argument to be made that the horror vacui within the Louvre formed an inspiration to Soane’s collection, far more than any extant British institution. Moreover, we must consider Napoleon’s improvements in Parisian town planning, particularly the axis connecting the Place de la Concorde, along the Champs Élysée to the Arc de Triomphe. By comparison, London was a piecemeal jumble. Soane did not particularly imitate the minutiae of Republican French neo-classical architecture, but he did emulate Napoleon’s Parisian cityscape, when in 1827-28 he proposed a grand processional route through London. This would have connected Windsor Castle and Westminster Palace, via a new Royal palace and two triumphal arches, and was intended to provide a processional route for the Monarch’s annual opening of Parliament. Although Soane’s scheme never came to fruition, it would have transformed a large swath of the capital into an urban paradise to rival Napoleon’s Paris.
Frances Sands, Curator of Drawings and Books, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. Fran research interests lie in Georgian architectural drawings. Prior to working at the Soane Museum she studied for a PhD at the University of York. Her thesis comprised a monographic study of Nostell Priory near Wakefield. In 2010 she was appointed Catalogue Editor at the Soane Museum, tasked with cataloguing the office drawings collection of Robert and James Adam – a vast project which is still ongoing. In 2016, she was appointed as the Curator of Drawings and Books, taking additional responsibility for the Soane Museum’s wider collection of 30,000 drawings and 7,000 books, as well as supervising the Soane Museum research library and drawings cataloguing projects. Since 2010, Fran has also served as a Trustee for the York Georgian Society, the Mausolea and Monuments Trust and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the morning of the talk.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
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£3 members, £5 non-members This talk will explore the fascinating life and scandalous death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, celebrated in her day as the ‘female Byron’ for her poetry. The mysterious
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£3 members, £5 non-members
This talk will explore the fascinating life and scandalous death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, celebrated in her day as the ‘female Byron’ for her poetry. The mysterious circumstances of her death, found with a bottle of Prussic acid in her hand at Cape Coast Castle, West Africa, in 1838, were as enigmatic as the particulars of her life; she was a woman with many secrets, not least three illegitimate children. Following her death she became the subject of a cover up which is only now unravelling and this talk will delve into the mystery of her life, work and death, set against the backdrop of the late Georgian period, that post-Byronic era which marked a ‘strange pause’ between the Romantics and the Victorians.
Lucasta Miller is a writer and literary journalist, who formerly worked as deputy literary editor of The Independent. She has contributed to The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement and The Economist, as well as publishing and writing on the works of the Bronte sisters. Her biography of Letitia Elizabeth Landon was published in 2019.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
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march
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£3 members, £5 non-members This talk will tell the untold story of the men who shaped Britain’s gardens, with help from a recently unearthed book of handwritten notes by young gardeners in
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£3 members, £5 non-members
This talk will tell the untold story of the men who shaped Britain’s gardens, with help from a recently unearthed book of handwritten notes by young gardeners in support of their applications to be received into the Horticultural Society’s training scheme at their Chiswick Garden in the 1820s. Some of these men went on to work on Britain’s finest country estates, while others ended up tending more modest gardens or found themselves in exotic locations around the glove. Nevertheless, these previously hidden figures played a central role in the history of British horticulture and helped to shape the way we garden today.
Fiona Davison is Head of Libraries and Exhibitions at the Royal Horticultural Society. Her book, The Hidden Horticulturists: The Untold Story of the Men who Shaped Britain’s Gardens, was published in 2019.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
This lecture is part of our Georgian Gardens and Landscapes series. The full list of lectures in the series is as follows:
Tuesday 2 March – Hidden Horticulturists
Tuesday 9 March – Marble Hill – A Garden of Grottos and Groves
Tuesday 16 March – William Kent: Garden Designer, Architect, Interior Designer
Tuesday 23 March – Vauxhall, Sex & Entertainment: The Invention of the Urban Pleasure Garden
Tuesday 30 March – Welsh Gardens and the Grand Tour
Tuesday 6 April – Follies: An Architectural Journey
Tuesday 13 April – The English Landscape Revolution
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
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£3 members/£5 non-members Henrietta Howard, mistress of George II and later Countess of Suffolk, created Marble Hill house in the 1720s as a retreat from court life and as a
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£3 members/£5 non-members
Henrietta Howard, mistress of George II and later Countess of Suffolk, created Marble Hill house in the 1720s as a retreat from court life and as a place to entertain her elite circle of influential cultural, intellectual and political friends. This was a time of significant change in garden designs and Howard’s friendship with Alexander Pope, Lord Bathurst, Lord Peterborough and Lord Ilay, meant that her garden at Marble Hill was influenced by some of the most fashionable garden enthusiasts of the time. This talk will explore how the garden was created and who might have been involved in its design.
Emily Parker is a Landscape Advisor at English Heritage. She specialises in garden history and designed landscape conservation. Emily’s primary research interests are garden design in the eighteenth century, including the role of Alexander Pope, ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton. Emily has also researched and written interpretation content for many English Heritage sites including Eltham Palace, Kirby Hall, Mount Grace Priory and Wrest Park. She has also produced Conservation Management Plans for English Heritage gardens including Belsay Hall, Marble Hill and Walmer Castle.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
This lecture is part of our Georgian Gardens and Landscapes series. The full list of lectures in the series is as follows:
Tuesday 2 March – Hidden Horticulturists
Tuesday 9 March – Marble Hill – A Garden of Grottos and Groves
Tuesday 16 March – William Kent: Garden Designer, Architect, Interior Designer
Tuesday 23 March – Vauxhall, Sex & Entertainment: The Invention of the Urban Pleasure Garden
Tuesday 30 March – Welsh Gardens and the Grand Tour
Tuesday 6 April – Follies: An Architectural Journey
Tuesday 13 April – The English Landscape Revolution
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
Get tickets for this event
Book NowEvent Details
£3 members, £5 non-members James Gibbs’s Church of St Mary-le-Strand has often been interpreted by historians as Gibbs’s most Italianate building, the expression, in stylistic terms, of his Tory politics and
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£3 members, £5 non-members
James Gibbs’s Church of St Mary-le-Strand has often been interpreted by historians as Gibbs’s most Italianate building, the expression, in stylistic terms, of his Tory politics and his Roman Catholic faith. As such, many have viewed it as a failure, one that identified Gibbs as being out of step with the Palladianism that was coming into fashion as the church went up. In this talk, William Aslet argues that this view has been misconceived. Rather than taking its cues from Baroque Italy, Aslet will suggest that in this church Gibbs responds quite precisely to its unique London island site. Rather than a failure, St Mary-le-Strand emerges as the building that made Gibbs’s name and launched his career.
William Aslet is currently researching for a PhD on James Gibbs at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. He read History at the University of Oxford, before moving to Cambridge, where he completed his MPhil, also on Gibbs. His publications include works on eighteenth-century British architecture as well as on Elizabethan portrait miniatures.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
Time
(Monday) 6:30 pm
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£3 members, £5 non-members William Kent (1685-1748) was one of those all-round designers, like Bernini, who could turn his hand to anything – architecture, interior design, painting, garden design, even
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£3 members, £5 non-members
William Kent (1685-1748) was one of those all-round designers, like Bernini, who could turn his hand to anything – architecture, interior design, painting, garden design, even book illustration. The first half of the eighteenth century was a period when garden design in Britain was in a state of flux. Kent proved to have a crucial role in adapting an evolving naturalistic style to his own unique vision, and was praised by Horace Walpole in On Modern Gardening. According to Christopher Hussey, he provided exactly what the Early Georgians looked for in the new gardening: ‘elegant variation, evocation of an ideal past, and the visual embodiment of a philosophical idea.’ This talk looks at some of Kent’s best work including Rousham, Esher and Stowe and evaluates him in relation to his contemporaries, Charles Bridgeman, Stephen Switzer and Robert Castell.
This lecture will be given by George Carter and Caroline Knight. George Carter is a garden historian and designer who specialises in restoring and recreating historic gardens, particularly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He has written several books on garden design and his work has appeared in numerous books and magazines. Caroline Knight is an architectural historian specialising in British Architecture of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. She is an independent lecturer at the V&A Museum and for the Arts Society and the author of London’s Country Houses.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
This lecture is part of our Georgian Gardens and Landscapes series. The full list of lectures in the series is as follows:
Tuesday 2 March – Hidden Horticulturists
Tuesday 9 March – Marble Hill – A Garden of Grottos and Groves
Tuesday 16 March – William Kent: Garden Designer, Architect, Interior Designer
Tuesday 23 March – Vauxhall, Sex & Entertainment: The Invention of the Urban Pleasure Garden
Tuesday 30 March – Welsh Gardens and the Grand Tour
Tuesday 6 April – Follies: An Architectural Journey
Tuesday 13 April – The English Landscape Revolution
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
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Book Nowapril
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£3 members/£5 non-members Follies were an important feature of English landscape gardens in the long eighteenth century. They could take a multitude of forms, from lavish banqueting houses to temples to
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£3 members/£5 non-members
Follies were an important feature of English landscape gardens in the long eighteenth century. They could take a multitude of forms, from lavish banqueting houses to temples to lost loves, while their designers read like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the greatest figures in Georgian architecture and landscape design – Wren, Vanbrugh, Kent, ‘Capability’ Brown and Repton. In this talk, Rory Fraser will take us on an illustrated journey across England as he unearths the stories behind these often-overlooked architectural gems. Fraser’s philosophy is that follies, though often marginalised, serve as focal points for architecture, landscape and literature. As such, they create a series of portals through which to understand the periods in which they were built, providing an alternative lens through which to track and celebrate the English character, culture and love of individualism.
Rory Fraser was brought up between Rutland and Inverness. He worked for English Heritage and learnt Art History in Venice and Florence, before studying English at Oxford University where he specialised in landscape poetry and architecture, and wrote comedy for the Oxford Review. On graduating, he worked for John Simpson Architects in Bloomsbury. He is currently at Cambridge University, where he is doing an MPhil in Architectural History under Frank Salmon. His book, Follies: An Architectural Journey, was published in November 2020.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
(Image: Sezincote, Rory Fraser)
This lecture is part of our Georgian Gardens and Landscapes series. The full list of lectures in the series is as follows:
Tuesday 2 March – Hidden Horticulturists
Tuesday 9 March – Marble Hill – A Garden of Grottos and Groves
Tuesday 16 March – William Kent: Garden Designer, Architect, Interior Designer
Tuesday 23 March – Vauxhall, Sex & Entertainment: The Invention of the Urban Pleasure Garden
Tuesday 30 March – Welsh Gardens and the Grand Tour
Tuesday 6 April – Follies: An Architectural Journey
Tuesday 13 April – The English Landscape Revolution
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
Get tickets for this event
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£3 members/£5 non-members The eighteenth-century English Landscape Movement pioneered a radical new approach to sculpting and farming the land which gives great inspiration for the issues we face today. Landscape architect
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£3 members/£5 non-members
The eighteenth-century English Landscape Movement pioneered a radical new approach to sculpting and farming the land which gives great inspiration for the issues we face today. Landscape architect Kim Wilkie will trace this development through looking at some of the projects he has worked on, including the great landscapes of Boughton (for which he won a Georgian Group award in 2011 for Restoration of a Georgian Garden or Landscape) and Heveningham, as well as some more humble manor houses.
Kim Wilkie is a renowned landscape architect. After decades of running his own practice, Kim now works as a strategic and conceptual landscape consultant. He collaborates with architects and landscape architects around the world.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
This lecture is part of our Georgian Gardens and Landscapes series. The full list of lectures in the series is as follows:
Tuesday 2 March – Hidden Horticulturists
Tuesday 9 March – Marble Hill – A Garden of Grottos and Groves
Tuesday 16 March – William Kent: Garden Designer, Architect, Interior Designer
Tuesday 23 March – Vauxhall, Sex & Entertainment: The Invention of the Urban Pleasure Garden
Tuesday 30 March – Welsh Gardens and the Grand Tour
Tuesday 6 April – Follies: An Architectural Journey
Tuesday 13 April – The English Landscape Revolution
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
Get tickets for this event
Book NowEvent Details
£3 members, £5 non-members Mark Girouard, in his iconic Life in the English Country House, playfully noted that by the late eighteenth century, nature had come to be considered ‘refreshing’ rather
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£3 members, £5 non-members
Mark Girouard, in his iconic Life in the English Country House, playfully noted that by the late eighteenth century, nature had come to be considered ‘refreshing’ rather than ‘frightening’ and, as a consequence, ‘one can watch country houses gradually sinking into the ground and opening up to the surrounding landscape’. Consistent with increasingly popular notions of the Picturesque, this general trend toward lowering the principal floor from piano nobile to ground level, coupled with a growing fashion for full-length windows, resulted in a closer engagement between house and garden. The increase in the size and number of windows fostered a greater openness to light, air and views; in addition, one could often walk directly through these multiple ground-level openings between interior and exterior. This talk will address different forms of permeability, looking at the adoption of various types of windows as well as the growing popularity of attached conservatories and other transitional spaces, such as loggias and verandas. Focusing on the work of James Wyatt (1746–1813), John Nash (1752–1835) and Sir John Soane (1753–1837), it will probe Girouard’s broad overview of the period in more specific detail, assessing how and to what extent leading architects of the day were indeed seeking to blur the boundaries between interior and exterior, with each architect’s distinctive approaches to permeability affecting the experience of moving within and between the house and its surroundings in novel but enduring ways.
Rebecca Tropp is currently finishing her PhD in History of Art at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, working under the supervision of Dr Frank Salmon. She completed her MPhil in History of Art and Architecture at Cambridge in 2015, investigating recurring spatial arrangements and patterns of movement in the country houses of John Nash. Prior to commencing postgraduate studies in the UK, she received her bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in New York, where she majored in the History and Theory of Architecture.
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
Please note that due to copyright restrictions this talk will NOT be recorded
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
Time
(Monday) 6:30 pm
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£3 members/£5 non-members Using many unpublished illustrations, historian Philip Mansel shows that Napoleon was not, as Hegel called him ‘the world soul on horseback’, but above all a monarch: Emperor of
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£3 members/£5 non-members
Using many unpublished illustrations, historian Philip Mansel shows that Napoleon was not, as Hegel called him ‘the world soul on horseback’, but above all a monarch: Emperor of the French, King of Italy and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. He abolished republics in Venice, Genoa, Milan, Dubrovnik and the Netherlands, and made the rulers of Saxony, Bavaria and Wurttemberg kings. In France, he recreated a court, a dynasty and a nobility. His uniforms, palaces and furniture, usually designed by Percier and Fontaine, helped rebrand monarchy for the nineteenth century. On Elba and Saint Helena he maintained more etiquette than most other monarchs in exile. His principal internal reform, the Code Napoleon, was adopted in many foreign countries but none of his frontiers or constitutions survived. He left France smaller and weaker than he found it, having lost over 900,000 soldiers’ lives and all its conquests.
Philip Mansel is a historian of courts and cities, and of France and the Ottoman Empire. He co-founded the Society for Court Studies and has appeared on television and radio. He has published extensively, including some fourteen books, and has contributed to numerous newspapers and journals. His latest book is a life of Louis XIV, the king who was one of Napoleon’s models: King of the World (Penguin 2019)
The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.
Georgian Group members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering GGMEMBER at the checkout.
***This talk will be recorded. The recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
Time
(Tuesday) 6:30 pm
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£25/student ticket £15 Following the successful conferences run by the Georgian Group in previous years on Women and Architecture, on the architecture of James Gibbs and on the work of the
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£25/student ticket £15
Following the successful conferences run by the Georgian Group in previous years on Women and Architecture, on the architecture of James Gibbs and on the work of the Adam brothers, our symposium for 2021 will highlight changing perspectives and new research on the architecture of London undertaken since the publication of the latest edition of Sir John Summerson’s Georgian London (1988, reissued 2003). A series of short papers by both established and younger scholars will cover aspects of housing and estate development, public and commercial architecture, places of entertainment and related topics.
This year’s symposium will take place online over Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd May. The full programme can be viewed below.
Joining details for the symposium will be sent to ticket holders on Friday 21st May.
Students can purchase a discounted ticket (£15) by clicking here.
***The symposium will be recorded and the recording will be available to all those who have purchased a ticket for a limited period of time after the event takes place***
Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking
SATURDAY 22nd MAY
9.30am: Welcome
9.40: Keynote talk: Elizabeth McKellar – Georgian London after Summerson
10.10-11.25: Session 1 The Restoration and After
Frank Kelsall – ‘Nicholas Barbon in Holborn’
India Wright – ‘The Redevelopment of Middle Temple in the Late Seventeenth Century’
Charlotte Davis – ‘Restoration London Reconsidered: Edward Pearce and Carved Ornament’
Helen Lawrence-Beaton – ‘The remodelling of Monmouth House, Soho Square by Thomas Archer’
Questions
11.25-11.40: Break
11.40-12.55: Session 2 Eighteenth-century town houses and estate development
Juliet Learmouth – ‘Living amidst the ruins: Eighteenth-century Whitehall and the Bentinck family’
Melanie Hayes – ‘A cultural exchange: The Anglo-Irish in Hanoverian London’
Rory Lamb – ‘Scottish property in Georgian London: George Steuart and the Duke of Buccleuch’s urban estates’
Sarah Milne – ‘Merchants’ houses of Goodman’s Fields Whitechapel’
Questions
12.55: Closing remarks
SUNDAY 23rd MAY
10.30am: Welcome
10.35-11.35: Session 3 The early nineteenth century
Todd Longstaffe-Gowan – ‘Charlotte Girdlestone’s early nineteenth-century panorama of Regent’s Park’
Geoffrey Tyack – ‘Beyond the Park: John Nash, the Park Village and Cumberland Market’
Amy Spencer – ‘Architectural competition and its values at the London University, 1825–6’
Questions
11.35-11.50: Break
11.50-12.50: Session 4 Miscellany
Michael Burdon – ‘A ‘vile and absurd edifice of brick’: London’s Opera House in the Haymarket’
Gillian Williamson – ‘Life in Lodgings in Georgian London’
Caroline Stanford – ‘‘The Resurrection is upon us!’ The role of sculpture in Georgian London’
Questions
12.50: Closing remarks
(Image: Regent Street, c.1822, from The Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions and politics)
Time
22 (Saturday) 9:30 am - 23 (Sunday) 1:00 pm