Events

£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.

£15 members/£18 non-members

Grinling Gibbons is by far the best known of a group of carvers working for the sovereign on new commissions at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace in the 1690s, but he worked alongside others such as William Emmett and Gaius Gabriel Cibber in both wood and stone.  This talk from Lee Prosser will examine how this collaboration created the varied decorative schemes in the royal palaces.

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

£40 (exc. lunch), all day

Winner of the Georgian Group Architectural Award for Restoration of a Georgian Building in an Urban Context Gainsborough’s House, the childhood home of one of Britain’s most important artists, recently reopened to the public on following a £10 million transformational redevelopment to create an international centre for Thomas Gainsborough, and the largest gallery in Suffolk.  The museum now presents the world’s most comprehensive collection of Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), telling the full story of the artist’s life and work, as well as showcasing the widespread influence he had on his contemporaries. The day will include a talk about the restoration project, an opportunity to view the gallery and a walking tour of Sudbury.

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

An enduring myth of Georgian architecture is that it was purely the pursuit of male architects and their wealthy male patrons. Amy Boyington dismantles this myth – revealing instead that women were at the heart of the architectural patronage of the day, exerting far more influence and agency than has previously been recognised. Architectural drawing and design, discourse, and patronage were interests shared by many women in the eighteenth century. Far from being the preserve of elite men, architecture was a passion shared by both sexes, intellectually and practically, as long as they possessed sufficient wealth and autonomy.

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

£70/£35 (student ticket)

Following previous successful symposia, most recently that on ‘Architecture and Health, 1660-1830’, held at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in February 2023 and our Wren symposium held at Trinity College Oxford in April 2023 the subject for 2024 will be ‘Architecture and Design in Britain, 1815-1830’ led by Geoffrey Tyack of Oxford University.

Saturday 13 April 2023, 10am- 5.30pm

Art Workers’ Guild, London

Session 1

Geoffrey Tyack: John Nash and the making of Regency London

Rosemary Yallop: The Architecture of Gentility: Villa Books, tastemaking and the idea of ‘Home’

Session 2

Sue Berry: Designing the seaside resort 1815-1830: change along the south coast.

Steven Brindle: Georgian Infrastructure:   Roads,  Bridges and Canals

Session 3

Peter Lindfield: George Shaw of Uppermill, Yorkshire, and the Regency country house

Jonathan Kewley: Thomas Brine and the Isle of Man

Session 4

Rebecca Burrows: Human Stories: Understanding 18th century mental healthcare facilities through visual depictions

Christopher Webster: Church-building in the Regency era

This provisional programme and could be subject to change.

Public tickets include a buffet lunch and drinks reception. A limited number of student tickets are available here.

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

Cornwall is a place where history is never far below the surface. It is a place of myth and legend, ancient tales and romance. The Cornish country house has been part of the history and a setting for mystery, legend and passion for centuries and has attracted many writers as a platform for great stories. Often the picture painted in fiction of Cornish houses is highly romantic – typically a rugged cliff top mansion, inhabited by a turbulent, but fascinating owner. The reality is a little more grounded. Cornishmen were usually too wise to build their houses on exposed cliff tops. Instead, Cornish houses were usually built in more sheltered places, often in beautiful valleys or screened by wonderful woods. Perhaps because these houses were built on sequestered and hidden sites, many are not that well known or recorded. In this talk, Patrick Newberry aims to remedy that lack of knowledge.

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

£25, morning

Heaton Hall, a fine neo-classical building, was the ancestral home of the Egerton family.  Sir Thomas Egerton, the 7th baronet, had the Hall rebuilt in the 1770s with James Wyatt as architect.  Sir Thomas, created Lord Grey de Wilton in 1784, and Earl of Wilton in 1801, was succeeded by his grandson, the second earl, in 1814.  The Hall and the estate were sold to Manchester City Council in 1902.  Heaton Park is the largest municipal park in Europe.

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- Saturday 23 March

This event is open to all. 

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: Wikipedia

£15 members/£18 non-members

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones examines the East India Company’s impact on India, focussing on how it changed the sub-continent’s built environment in the context of defence, urbanisation, and infrastructural development. Railways, docks, municipal buildings, freemasons’ lodges, hotels, race-courses, barracks, cemeteries, statues, canals—everything the British erected made a political statement, even if unconsciously. She assesses, in turn, Indian responses to the changing landscape. Indians often reacted favourably to new manufacturing technologies from Britain, like minting and gunpowder, while the British learnt from and adapted local methods.

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

£35

This walk has been rescheduled from November 2023

Starting with Domesday, when the Manor consisted of vineyards and pigs, the story moves via Civil War fortifications to the strong intellectual, educational, and medical presence, alongside tales of the Bloomsbury Group.  While discussing one of London’s most notable landlords, the Bedford Estate, we will also discover the oldest square in London, plans for a Nazi HQ in London and a Church linked to a Roman temple in Lebanon.

In terms of individuals there will be plenty to introduce, including Edwin Lutyens, Millicent Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.

Yet there is more to Bloomsbury than meets the eye, so we will also discover telephone exchanges, “Penny Policies”, the preparations for D-Day and coal hole covers.

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.

The walk will begin at 10.30am in the centre of Bloomsbury Square. 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.

£5 members/£7 non-members

George Shaw (1810–76) of Uppermill in Yorkshire and on the periphery of Greater Manchester was the son of a cloth merchant. Working for his father, Shaw sold cloth as far north as Glasgow and south as Birmingham; during these journeys he took the opportunity to tour many ancient heritage sites and Gothic Revival properties. Shaw also collected ancient fragments, material culture, and furniture, and he sketched buildings whilst on these trips. This knowledge was used to inform Shaw’s subsequent architectural practice, and he also turned this knowledge to nefarious ends, notably producing modern, Tudor-style furniture that claimed to be ‘heirlooms’ and which he sold to modern-day aristocrats. Peter Lindfield will discuss this fascinating character.

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

£25, morning

Built in 1697 as a grand country house for a Dutch merchant, 195 Mare Street is one of Hackney’s oldest buildings. The house became the Elizabeth Fry Refuge in 1860 and was home to thousands of young women recently released from prison. In the twentieth century, 195 Mare Street became the New Lansdowne Working Men’s Club and a hub of Hackney social life. The house is currently being restored by Lynch Architects and will become a family home and community arts venue. Works include restoring partitions between rooms, installing a new staircase and reviving the historic kitchen.

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.

£15 members/£18 non-members

Standing at the entrance to the working port of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, Dockyard Church, listed Grade II*, was completed in 1828 to the designs of the Admiralty Surveyor, George Ledwell Taylor. Badly damaged by fire on two occasions, first in 1881 and again in 2001, it was added to HE’s ‘at risk’ list. In 2016, however, the church was acquired by Swale Borough Council and transferred to the Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust. The trust then set about developing a £9.5m plan for its rescue, repair, and reuse. A total of £4.7m was secured from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, with the demand for match funding. Work was completed in May 2023. Will Palin, a Trustee of the Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust, will discuss this remarkable restoration and the winner of a 2023 Georgian Group Architectural Award.

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 Rococo arrived in England from France in the 1730s as a style of decoration,  carried on paper and used initially for small objects,  bookplates,  illustrations and temporary structures,  as well as being manifested in painting and sculpture.  The Italian stuccadori had helped to prepare the ground for it with their late-Baroque plasterwork:  now a network of artists and craftspeople,  including Roubiliac,  Hogarth,  Hayman and Gravelot,  adapted the style to English tastes,  as it spread into furniture and interior design.  Rococo was in part a reaction against the Neo-Palladian orthodoxy,  and it was usually the clients,  artists and craftspeople who were responsible for its introduction:  it is a moot point whether the label can really be applied to architecture in Britain.   Steven Brindle considers the style’s origins and swift development,  the  character it assumed in the British Isles,   and its decline and further transmutation in the 1760s.

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

By examining Adam’s most successful designs of the 1760s following his return from Rome – for example at Kedleston Hall, Syon House and Osterley Park – Colin Thom charts the transformation of such buildings into exemplars of progressive Neo-classical taste. Adam achieved this through the introduction of varied room shapes and the application of a new decorative language – both derived from classical precedents but also ideally suited to the refinements of Georgian society – creating an experience for owners and visitors that was fundamentally picturesque in its conception. This paper was first given at the Mount Vernon Symposium of 2019.

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

£25, morning

Commended at the Georgian Group Architectural Awards in 2022, Boston Manor House was subject to alteration and extension in the 18th and 19th centuries and has suffered a chequered history since the 1920s.  It was on the Heritage at Risk Register from 2001 when in 2017 the London Borough of Hounslow initiated a major works project to conserve and restore the house.  After a conservation project completed by Purcell, the house is now open to the public once more. The tour will be led by the project architect.

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

The 2020 toppling of slave-trader Edward Colston’s statue by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol was a dramatic reminder of Britain’s role in trans-Atlantic slavery, too often overlooked. Yet the legacy of that predatory economy reaches far beyond bronze memorials; it continues to shape the entire visual fabric of the country. Architect Victoria Perry explores the relationship between the wealth of slave-owning elites and the architecture and landscapes of Georgian Britain. She reveals how profits from Caribbean sugar plantations fed the opulence of stately homes and landscape gardens. The patronage of absentee planters popularised British ideas of ‘natural scenery’—viewing mountains, rivers and rocks as landscape art—and then exported the concept of ‘sublime and picturesque’ landscapes across the Atlantic.

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

£30, 10.30am

Join us for a curator led tour of this special display at the Foundling Museum. Giving us a unique opportunity to explore one of the most treasured items in the Foundling Museum collection, and to learn more about one of London’s celebrated composers.

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

Not enclosing land so that it was laid out in large blocks ready for development resulted in challenges for Georgian developers such as limitations imposed on the design of houses, and the much higher cost of assembling enough land on which to build even a short street. Brighton is used as an example of a town surrounded by a fossilised open field system and Sue Berry will explore how the enterprising builder developers dealt with it. Other towns, such as Portsmouth were faced with the same issue.

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

£15 members/£18 non-members

Many Europeans continued their Grand Tour, by sailing on from Marseille, Venice or Naples, accompanied by artists, interpreters and servants, to Greece, Constantinople, Syria and Egypt. They included French scholars in the reign of Louis XIV like the Chevalier d’Arvieux, Thevenot and Tournefort; James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, Thomas Hope, William Bankes, and many others.

Their main motives were interest in the power and future of the Ottoman Empire; and desire to find classical antiquities, manuscripts, rare plants and, in the case of Casanova and Byron, sexual adventures. English country-houses acquired ceilings inspired by Athens or Palmyra, travellers’ portraits in Ottoman dress, and cedars from Lebanon. The Ottoman Empire was a particularly appealing destination during the Napoleonic wars, when the rest of Europe was a battle field, and Ottoman authorities like Ali Pasha of Janina and Mohammed Ali in Egypt needed foreign allies and welcomed foreign visitors. This talk from Philip Mansel will be illustrated by 150 (often unpublished) pictures of the Ottoman Empire, showing Athens, Constantinople, Ephesus, Aleppo, Baalbek, Palmyra and Alexandria, and many other sites.

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.