The Georgian period gave us many of Britain’s most beautiful buildings – in cities, towns and villages. Yet much of our Georgian inheritance remains in danger...

£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

£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

£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