Events

£25, Afternoon

Tabley House, described as the finest Palladian mansion In Cheshire was built by John Carr of York for Sir Peter Byrne Leicester in 1767. The Leicester family lived at Tabley from the 14^th Century, first in the Old Hall on a moated island, and then later in the fine Georgian house that still stands today.

This visit is for members’ only. 

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

Sarah Siddons grew up always poor and often hungry. But before she was 30 she had become a superstar. Her rise was not easy. Her London debut, aged just 20, was a disaster. But the young actress – already a mother of two – rebuilt her career, returning triumphantly to the capital seven years later. Her shows were sell-outs. In a world of vicious satire and gossip, Sarah battled to protect her reputation. She took constant pains to portray herself as a wife and mother, but this hid some darker truths. This remarkable woman also redefined the world of theatre and became the first celebrity actress.

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

Join the Young Georgians for a trip to Fulham Palace to see the exhibition “new classical art – Dedicated to showcasing the work of sixteen artists committed to traditional, classical and realist art forms, this exhibition highlights the time-honoured techniques and design principles that have evolved over centuries. Many of the featured artists paint directly from life, while others explore a variety of traditional practices, such as icon painting. This exhibition invites visitors to experience the enduring legacy of painting and its continued relevance in today’s world.”

Featuring some pieces by our own members please come along to see the exhibition and then tour the palace. Please meet at 1:30 in Fulham palace courtyard (finishing roughly at 4pm)

A free event, all Young Members and particularly potential new members are warmly welcome.

£20 members/£25 non-members

Curt DiCamillo is a noted author and internationally recognised authority on the British country house. The Massachusetts-based Mr. DiCamillo regularly leads luxury scholarly tours and lectures around the world on art and architecture. At this ‘in conversation’ with Julian Honer (Director, Thames & Hudson) , Curt will join us to discuss his latest book, A British Country House Alphabet, which documents famous historical events and cultural innovations that occurred at, or because of, British country houses.

Julian Honer is Editorial Director at Thames & Hudson, where he heads the publisher’s partnerships with museums, including the British Museum, the V&A and M+ museum in Hong Kong. He also commissions books about historic and contemporary architecture.

The discussion will be followed by a reception to celebrate the launch of the book.

The talk starts at 6.30pm, doors open from 6.00pm.

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

£5- Sunday 15 September

Join us to explore how Chelsea went from a scattered village to a leisure resort to London’s bohemia. We’ll see Wren and Soane’s work at the Royal Hospital; centuries of history at Old Church; the stirring of the gothic revival at St Luke’s; and the sites of the famous Bun House and Ranelagh Gardens. Following his tour of West End churches in March, Young Georgian Charlie Clegg will lead the walk.

The tour will begin at 12.30 on Sunday, 15 September at the statue of Mozart in Orange Square. The tour will take about two hours and will cover just over one and half miles. The route will be accessible for participants with mobility needs. We recommend you have lunch beforehand. There will be a chance for tea/food/a drink afterwards.

This event is open to Young Georgian members only.

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.

£40 (exc. lunch), all day (11am- 3.30/4pm approx.)

The Grade I listed Piece Hall, Halifax is the only remaining Georgian cloth hall in the world, the sole survivor of the great eighteenth century northern cloth halls, a class of buildings which embodied the vital and dominant importance of the trade in hand woven textiles to the pre-industrial economy of the West Riding of Yorkshire, from the Middle Ages through to the early nineteenth century. The tour will be led by LDN architects, who led an extensive regeneration project completed in 2017.

Just a mile from Halifax centre, Grade II* Shibden Hall dates to 1420. Home of renowned diarist Anne Lister (1791-1840), significant changes to the architecture of Shibden Hall were made whilst she lived there. She employed the architect John Harper of York to make improvements, including the addition of a Norman-style tower c1836 for her library with modern water closets. The main hall was also re-opened to the height of the building and a gallery, new ‘Jacobethan’ panelling and a fireplace were all installed, making the space more imposing.

Members to make their own arrangements for transport.  This visit is for Georgian Group members only. 

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

£5 members/£7 non-members

Mrs Coade is best known for her fired artificial stone, supplied from her manufactory in Lambeth and ubiquitous in Georgian England and far beyond.

This talk will consider wider aspects of her life in London: the places she lived and also her activity in speculative development, both as financier and developer herself. Locating Coade in this wider context provides an interesting case study in the architectural activities of Georgian women, as well as in how a never-married woman like Coade successfully navigated the world of business, challenging our perceptions of female agency in the period.

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

£70

The Young Georgians invite you to join them at Fitzroy Square for an evening of feasting, dancing and general merriment!

The festivities will commence in the Gardens at 6pm with regency dancing, accompanied by a dance caller and regency band. Later in the evening, the party will move to Number Six where party-goers may enjoy a buffet banquet across the two floors of the 1790s Robert Adam townhouse. An auction and tombola will enliven the scene and proffer guests the potential for a prize!

Dress code: Georgian attire or Black Tie

There is booking priority for Young Georgians from the 22nd July until the 29th July when the tickets will be open to all.

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.

£30

Join us for a packed day of architectural and artistic treasures. We will begin the day with a tour of a stunning private house in the Cathedral close dating from 1720 and once the home of Rex Whistler. We will then learn more of Whistler through the exhibition ‘Rex Whistler: The Artist and His Patrons’ at the nearby Salisbury Museum which will be introduced to us by a curator.

Lunch at the museum will follow and members will have the opportunity to explore the museum’s permanent collection in their own time. In the afternoon, we will explore other architectural delights in the Cathedral close, including the cathedral if time allows, and the rarely open 1790s Robert Taylor Guildhall.

Please meet on Chorister’s Square at 10:30am sharp. (Please note, the square is a 15 minute walk from the station). Lunch is reserved but not included in the ticket price.

Run by: Frederick Hervey-Bathurst. This event is open to Young Georgian Members and Georgian Group members only. 

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, 6.30pm- 8.30pm

Members are invited to join us in the lovely surrounds of the Fitzroy Square gardens (weather permitting) for our summer drinks. This is an opportunity for members to meet and socialise in a relaxed atmosphere.  

This event is for members only.

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

East Anglian Regional Group

Lectures: Neo-Georgian Architecture in the 20th Century

Lecturers: Dr Patrick Goode, FSA & George Carter, FSA

Thursday 15^th August, 2 – 5.30 pm at Silverstone Farm & All Saints, Bawdeswell

Dr Patrick Goode is a member of the Twentieth Century Society and was co-editor, with Sir Colin St. John Wilson, of The Oxford Companion to Architecture, OUP, 2010.

NEO-GEORGIAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE 20thC

Dr Patrick Goode

&

NEO-GEORGIAN BUILDINGS IN NORFOLK

George Carter

To be followed by a visit to All Saints, Bawdeswell to see the church by James Fletcher Watson, built in 1953

The talks will take place at Silverstone Farm, North Elmham, NR20 5EX, by kind permission of George Carter.

This event is for members and non-members.

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

Image: Bishop’s Palace, Norwich

£25, Morning

By kind permission of the Sunley family, members of the Georgian Group are invited to visit Godmersham Park.

The present Godmersham Park house was built in 1732 in Palladian style for Thomas Brodnax whose family had lived at Godmersham since the mid-16^th century. The architect is unknown but Christopher Hussey appraised it in Country Life in 1945 thus:

“the quality…implies a London man of status of Flitcroft or Roger Morris – scholarly Palladians yet acquainted with the English tradition…Godmersham’s charm consists to a great extent in its having been conceived on a relatively modest scale of a country gentleman’s house but executed…with the fastidiousness of the greatest houses of the period – the age of Holkham, Houghton and Wentworth Woodhouse.”

 The house is best known today as the home of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Knight, who moved in in 1797 having acquired the house through this cousin, Thomas Brodnax May Knight (son of the aforementioned Thomas). On your tour you will be guided around House, Gardens, Heritage Centre and St Lawrence the Martyr Church by trustee and conservation architect Rebecca Lilley, who wrote her 2022 Masters Dissertation on Godmersham Park.

The house is not usually available for public viewing and has been opened especially for the group.

Members to make their own arrangements for transport. This visit is for members’ only. 

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.

Image: Rebecca Lilley

£50

Join us for a visit to the historic Georgian city of Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to the works of Wood (the most successful town planner of eighteenth-century England), Eveleigh and Adam, amongst countless others. The day will start with a walking tour of the city, led by Dr Amy Frost, senior curator for the Bath Preservation Trust, who will point out the highlights and history of Bath’s famous sweeping crescents, the Circus, Assembly Rooms and other famed Georgian-period buildings.

The day will also include a visit to The Bath Preservation Trust’s museums, including No. 1 Royal Crescent, the Museum of Bath Architecture and Beckford’s Tower, which has recently undergone a £3.9 million refurbishment, reopening to the public in June 2024.

Tickets are £50 and include the walking tour and entrance to the museums. Lunch is not included in the ticket price. 11am start time.

This event is open to Young Georgian Members and Georgian Group members only

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

A final visit to the home of the late Ann Broadbent. A loyal member of the Georgian Group for over half a century, who hosted the group to her treasure filled home in Greenwich on several occasions. Ann’s house in the heart of Georgian Greenwich was decorated in her unique eclectic style with antiques and junk shop finds.

Join us for drinks in the garden and an ‘open house’ for one last time before the contents are sold at Wimbledon Auctions in August.

This event is open to Georgian Group Members only.

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.

£40/ £25 NT members (exc. lunch), all day

Join us for a visit to 17^th Century Fenton House, ‘a hidden gen in London, a place of unique charm and ambience’.  The tour will be led by the National Trust curator for the property who will point out the curiosities of the collection and members will have the opportunity to visit the beautiful gardens.

After lunch, join architectural historian and Editor of the London Topographical Society newsletter, India Wright, on this new tour of one of London’s most-loved villages. You will explore Hampstead’s historic streets, learning about the evolution of its early eighteenth-century spa resort and the burgeoning hilltop town which developed out of its popularity as a destination for health and diversion.

Members to make their own arrangements for transport.  This visit is for Georgian Group members only. For any members who are also National Trust members, please enter the code NTMEMBER at the checkout. 

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

Image: ©National Trust Images/Arnhel de Serra

Join the Young Georgians for a summer picnic after work in Kensington Gardens. The exact pin will be added to the Young Georgians WhatsApp group (please email yg@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the group)

This should be a lovely social event especially as the The Young Victorians will also be joining us. We hope to see you there.

A free event, all Young Members and particularly potential new members are warmly welcome. Please bring your own food and drink.

£70 members, All day

Members will make private visits to two significant Georgian houses, both owing their prosperity to the cloth industry pioneered by their early owners. We start at Corsham Court (Grade I), originally a medieval house owned by the Crown.  Despite its Elizabethan appearance, little remains of the major rebuilding in 1582 by Thomas Smythe, collector of customs in London. After several ownership changes, Corsham was acquired in 1747 by Paul Methuen (died 1792), whose descendants still live there.  They remodelled it over the next century in many styles – Palladian (Ireson and Brown), Gothic (Nash) and neo-Elizabethan (Bellamy, whose tower of 1846 dominates the N front) – successive architects replacing their predecessors’ changes.  Brown, then Repton, landscaped the park. We will see the renowned old masters first collected by Sir Paul Methuen (died 1757) and extended by 2nd Lord Methuen (died 1891).

Seend Manor House (Grade II*), was owned by the Awdry family 1695-c1924.  Ambrose Awdry built what became the manor house c 1695, mainly on the site of the lower 2-storey N front range of the present house.  His grandson Ambrose rebuilt and extended this in ashlar to the S from 1767 (rainwater heads).  This handsome taller 5-bay, 2-storey elevation, with a parapet and dormers in a mansard roof, has a dramatic long view towards Salisbury Plain.  The W end intriguingly features 11 blind windows and ornamental detail on the chimneystack.  The N elevation was remodelled c 1800, rendered with ashlar dressings and a tripartite window above the Ionic porch.  Most of the interior is original and has been atmospherically conserved by the present owners, Stephen and Amanda Clark, the designer, who have created a remarkable and exotic walled garden.

Andrew Wells leads.

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking. members’ to make their own transport arrangements. 

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

£35

The summer – with some sunshine – will have arrived by June, so come and spend a sunny morning along the banks of the Thames discovering this beautiful stretch of the River, with plenty of historical and contemporary themes.

We will discover a mortuary known as Dead Man’s Hole, English Delftware pottery and the Hanseatic League’s presence in the Steelyard.  We will then move upstream to hear about Customs Houses alongside Geoffrey Chaucer, Roman docks alongside an operating freight wharf, while walking via stories of Baynard Castle and the pulpits of Blackfriars Bridge.  We will also touch upon 1920s tiles, and twenty first century mosaics, before  completing our summer saunter with seabird motifs and mudlarking tales.  We will also discuss “shooting the rapids” at London Bridge, and the changing views of the London skyline.

The Walk will be led by Meg Ryder, a Londoner who hails from Pimlico and now lives in Camberwell.  Meg is a qualified solicitor who left the law to establish bespoke walking tours in London to follow her passion for all things historical, artistic and architectural. Meg has a Masters in History from Edinburgh University, and studied History of Art and Architectural History in Rome.

We will meet at 10.45am for a 11am start. This event is for members only.

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

The Young Georgians are delighted to host Victoria Wilson of Spencer House who will speak to us about her fascinating career managing the collections one of the last town houses of St. James’s, extensively restored by the late Lord Rothschild. Interestingly we will learn both about the history of the house and its varied role in the present day; as a heritage visitor attraction, company offices and private events venue.

£15, Young Georgian Members only. 

CAMBRIDGESHIRE VISIT: Farm Hall and Island Hall, Godmanchester

£75, all day

These two handsome red brick Grade II* houses of the 1740s share many stylistic similarities, both playing significant roles in World War II.  Each was built for an important public servant whose descendants included two distinguished generals. They are effectively country houses on the western edge of the small town of Godmanchester with views to the River Great Ouse.

Farm Hall was built in 1746 for Charles Clarke, a judge and MP.  The north and south pedimented elevations are similar, of 3 storeys and 5 bays.  The southern lime avenue dates from the 1740s, while a canal leads north to the Great Ouse.  The owner, Prof Marcial Echenique, designed an obelisk to commemorate Farm Hall’s wartime intelligence use, while German scientists were interned there for six months in 1945 to elicit information about Germany’s nuclear plans.

Island Hall was built in 1749 for Original Jackson for his son John, Receiver-General for Huntingdon.  The main elevations are identical, pedimented, of 3 storeys and 3 bays, with 2-storey, 2-bay wings.  The house was bought in 1804 by Jacob Julian Baumgartner, a Swiss Huguenot merchant. His Vane Percy descendants still live there after nine generations, having repurchased it in 1983 following its wartime requisition by the RAF, subsequent conversion to council flats and a fire.

Andrew Wells will lead.

Members to make their own arrangements for transport. This visit is for members’ only. 

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.

Image: Historic England

£15 members/£18 non-members

The gardens of the Earl of Burlington are among the most famous in the country but what do we know of the gardens which lay next door, and which were later acquired, adapted and incorporated into the present gardens?

Much new information has recently come to light on their history from the archives of Chatsworth House and elsewhere and will be the subject of this talk.

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

Join the Young Georgians on a private special access tour of St Marylebone Parish Church, designed by Thomas Hardwick in 1813-17. Guests will also (weather depending) be allowed to inspect the roof and advised to dress appropriately. A drink and donation to the church is included in the ticket price.

£20. This event is open to all. 

Tickets include a drink and refreshments sponsored by Box Car Bakery & Deli. A cash bar will also be available. 

and that this is event is held in collaboration with the St. Marylebone Society.

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

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

Image: Alan Baxter

£40, afternoon

Set in the heart of Clerkenwell, the Charterhouse has been living the Nation’s history since 1348. Initially a Black Death burial ground, the site became home to the largest Carthusian monastery in the world until it was brutally dissolved in 1537 when 16 monks became proto-martyrs of the Reformation.

A grand Tudor mansion replaced the monastery. Elizabeth I spent the first days of her reign at the Charterhouse and James I (of England) created 133 Barons in the Great Chamber prior to his coronation. In 1611 Thomas Sutton acquired the mansion and site to house his new Charity, an almshouse and school. The school separated and moved out of London in 1872 but the almhouse thrives to this day amidst the medieval, Tudor, Jacobean and later architecture that makes the site so fascinating. This tour will include a guided tour of the Charterhouse, Master’s Lodge and a drinks reception in the Old Library.

This visit is for members’ only. 

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

In the 1750s a debate unfolded in Rome as to which was superior:  Greek or Roman art. Despite the publication of Vol.1 of Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens (1762),  British architects and clients instinctively took their inspiration from Roman art for another generation or more.  Steven Brindle considers the development of the Greek style in England,  from its tentative and experimental mid-Georgian beginnings,  to its sudden triumph in the Regency age,  its establishment as the ‘public style’ in the 1810s and 20s,  its  relationship to the mainstream Neoclassicism of the late-Georgian age,  its decline  –   and its somewhat different course in Scotland.

The talks 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

£5 members/£7 non-members

Arthur and John Morris played an important role in the development of Coombe, Firle and Glynde Places in Sussex and worked on houses in Lewes. They dealt directly with clients even when there was an architect. Amon and Amon Henry Wilds worked mainly in two towns, Amon Henry shifting from builder to architect. He made a big impact on Brighton, designing houses, projects, churches and chapels.  There must have been many more local entrepreneurs like these and we need to know more about them. The Wilds moved to Brighton and undertook speculative development as well as worked for clients. The Morris family did not, Lewes did not offer the same opportunities. Sue Berry will investigate these interesting characters.

The talk starts at 6.30pm.

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.

£50 (inc. refreshments & lunch), all day

In the heart of the English countryside on the Hampshire/Berkshire border, you’ll find the elegant, but intimate, Stratfield Saye House, home to the Dukes of Wellington since 1818.

After the Battle of Waterloo the First Duke of Wellington or the Great Duke as he was universally known, was regarded as the saviour of his country and of Europe. A grateful nation voted a substantial sum of money to enable him to buy a house and an estate worthy of a great national hero. After considering many far grander properties, he chose Stratfield Saye.

Stratfield Saye House does not compare in either size or grandeur with the other great ducal houses and it was the Great Duke’s intention to build a huge palace in the north- east corner of the park, but fortunately the money was not available. He therefore set about making his home convenient and comfortable and, as a very practical man, he was well satisfied with the results.

The House today is lived in by the 9^th Duke of Wellington and his family.   Whilst the Great Duke’s wonderful collection of pictures are at Apsley House, which was given to the nation by the 7^th Duke in 1947, Stratfield Saye House contains a fascinating collection of paintings and furniture purchased by the Great Duke with many mementos of his occupation of his modest country home.

Members to make their own arrangements for transport. Refreshments and lunch are included in this visit. This visit is for members’ only. 

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.