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£15 members/£18 non-members

The architect, collector and teacher John Soane (1753–1837) did not mince his words. During his tenure as Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy in London, he was openly critical or complimentary of other architects as he saw fit. The work of the playwright-turned-architect John Vanbrugh was quite at odds with Soane’s own output, and yet Soane admired Vanbrugh enormously for his dynamic and inventive compositions, lauding his ‘genius’, ‘his bold flights of irregular fancy’, and hailing him as ‘the Shakespeare of architects’.

It is perhaps unsurprising that Soane should so venerate Vanbrugh’s dramatic flair, given that Soane cherished the theatre, and even owned four volumes of Vanbrugh’s plays. Subtle layering and hanging pendentive arches in Soane’s own work allude to his fascination for the physical construction of the theatre, notably the proscenium arch and stage legs. And so to find an architect whose work so eloquently married Soane’s twin passions for architecture and theatre was sure to result in his admiration.

This lecture will focus on Soane’s devotion to Vanbrugh. We will consider Soane’s own words on the subject from his Royal Academy lectures, and we will peruse the ten exquisite Royal Academy lecture drawings made by Soane’s office to illustrate Vanbrugh’s best-known works.

The talk starts at 6.30pm, doors open from 6.15pm.

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.

If tickets have sold out for this event, please email members@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the waiting list

£15 members/£18 non-members

The winner of the award for Restoration of a Georgian Interior, the Tapestry Drawing Room at Castle Howard is a completely new architectural treatment to a room which was destroyed by fire in 1940. The room had been left as an empty shell of charred stonework ever since. The brief was to restore the room to what the architect of the house Sir John Vanbrugh (d.1726) would have created and to incorporate the four Vanderbank tapestries which were designed and woven for the room in 1706. Architect Francis Terry, Clunie Fretton, classically trained sculptor, carver & gilder, and Philip Gaches, master plasterer, will discuss their work on this wonderful project.

The talk starts at 6.30pm, doors open from 6.15pm.

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.

If tickets have sold out for this event, please email members@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the waiting list

Photo credit: Francis Terry & Associates

£15 members/£18 non-members

Please note that the date of this talk has changed to the 8th December

2026 marks the bicentenary of University College London – 200 years since it was founded as London’s first university, and the first in the country to open its doors to all, irrespective of religious belief. This lecture tells the story of its first architectural expression: the domed Greek Revival building of 1827–9 designed by William Wilkins which, then as now, stood as a symbol of the institution’s democratic principles. The talk considers (among other things) the progressive philosophy – social and educational, as well as architectural – that lay behind Wilkins’s design; the terrible damage sustained during bombing raids in 1940–1; and the building’s subsequent restoration by the arch-neoclassicist Sir Albert Richardson, one of the founders of the Georgian Group

The talk starts at 6.30pm, doors open from 6.15pm.

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.

If tickets have sold out for this event, please email members@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the waiting list

Photo Credit: UCL Media Services – University College London