Events

£10 – Young Georgians

A brilliant opportunity for Young Georgians to not only hear a talk by one of our leading landscape designers but to also visit two of his works. This event, organised by Frederick Hervey-Bathurst in collaboration with Winchester College, will begin with a talk by Kim Wilkie at 2pm at the College, a short walk from Winchester station.

Kim will then guide the group on a tour of his works at Shawford Park and The Holt Estate.

The landscape surrounding Shawford, a seventeenth-century house set in the base of the Itchen Valley, has been much lauded for its imaginative restoration and scale of vision, involving plantations of 1000 new trees, new rills which intersect the watermeadows, and earthworks which offer marvellous prospects back to the house.

At The Holt, Kim’s amphitheatre responds elegantly to the house and its history and typifies his approach to landscape design, setting the stage for drama of all sorts! We are enormously privileged to have Kim leading our tour but also look forward to hearing from the owners and curators of both landscapes who have generously invited us in.

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

This event is open to Young Georgians 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 late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries changed the British built environment forever, as a combination of fossil fuels, the profits of empire and radical shifts in intellectual culture created a substantially new architectural ground condition. This lecture will examine how these changes led to a serious and critical conversation about architecture in the Grub Street Press, and what this nascent form of architectural criticism can teach us about Georgian architecture and intellectual culture.

Matthew Lloyd Roberts is a PhD student at the Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture at Cambridge University. His research is concerned with the experience and reception of architecture in 17^th-18^th century Britain. He also produces the architectural history podcast About Buildings and Cities and hosts the SAHGB’s podcast Architectural History.

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

£15 members/£18 non-members

The central decades of the eighteenth century in Britain were crucial to the history of European taste and design. One of the period’s most important campaigns of patronage and collecting was that of the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland: Sir Hugh Smithson (1712–86) and Lady Elizabeth Seymour Percy (1716–76). This lecture, based on the book Enlightened Eclecticism. The Grand Design of the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland (Yale UP, 2021), examines four houses they refurbished in eclectic architectural styles—Stanwick Hall, Northumberland House, Syon House, and Alnwick Castle—alongside the innumerable objects they collected, their funerary monuments, and their persistent engagement in Georgian London’s public sphere. Over the years, the couple’s commissions embraced, or pioneered styles as varied as Palladianism, rococo, neoclassicism, and Gothic revival. Patrons of many artists and architects, they are revealed, particularly, as the greatest supporters of Robert Adam. In every instance, minute details contributed to large-scale projects expressing the Northumberlands’ various aesthetic and cultural allegiances. Their development sheds light on the eclectic taste of Georgian Britain, the emergence of neoclassicism and historicism, and the cultures of the Grand Tour and the Enlightenment.

Adriano Aymonino is Director of Undergraduate Programmes in the Department of History of Art at the University of Buckingham and Programme Director for the MA in the Art Market and the History of Collecting. He has curated several exhibitions, such as Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal, held at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London in 2015. His book Enlightened Eclecticism was published by Yale University Press in June 2021. He is currently working on a revised edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s Taste and the Antique (2022); and on a critical edition of Robert Adam’s Grand Tour correspondence, which will be hosted on the Sir John Soane’s Museum website (2023). He is also co-editor of the series Paper Worlds published by MIT Press and associate editor of the Journal of the History of Collections.

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.

£25

Stephen Bull will discuss the ambitions of the Georgian Builders to create a network of streets and squares with the development of Walcot Square (1830) and West Square (1791) with a new ‘state of the art’ semaphore telegraph station constructed in 1810 to form part of a communication network stretching from the Admiralty to Chatham and Sheerness. The tour will also take in the site of Bethlem Royal Hospital (1815) which was also known as Bedlam and is now the home of the Imperial War Museum.

Part of a series of four walks from Vauxhall to Southwark. London’s South Bank has always been London’s pleasure ground and Stephen Bull, a long-time resident of the area and a repairer of Georgian buildings, will be looking at the Georgian development of the South Bank from Vauxhall to Southwark in a series of walks to enlighten, educate and amuse. The other walks in the series are:

2 March: Vauxhall to Kennington

4 May: Lambeth North to Waterloo

8 June: Waterloo to Southwark

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

This event is for members and their guests.

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

£40 (excl. lunch)

Although suffering the depredations of the twentieth century, much of Derby’s Georgian heritage still remains and is testament to the prosperity of the city in the eighteenth century, when it was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the Midlands Enlightenment. This day-long tour of Derby, led by Maxwell Craven and Richard Blunt, will take in some of the city’s finest Georgian buildings, including Joseph Pickford’s St Helen’s House (1767), Derby Cathedral with its Robert Bakewell iron work (James Gibbs 1723-25, extended by Sebastian Comper 1968-1971), the Derby Silk Mill (1717-1721 now the Museum of Making), the former Shire Hall (George Eaton 1659-1660) and Judges’ Lodgings (John Welch 1809-1811), and Joseph Pickford’s own House (c.1765) in Friar Gate, a street largely re-developed under two improvement acts of 1768 and 1791. Participants to make their own arrangements for lunch at the many eateries in the city.

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

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.

£15 (£10 YGs)

In this talk, Zuleika Gerrish will be introducing you to the glamorous world of eighteenth-century jewellery in Europe. This was an era of incredible wealth, growth and grandeur, with music, art, science and architecture all flourishing. As a result, the Georgians needed to look the part as well. What would they need to wear to sparkle their way through society in an era where you had to truly make it or fake it? The Georgians also loved their motifs and symbols but, above all, they loved to show off. Four kings came and went, and with them all the bling that they and their subjects wore. This was the ultimate era of peacocks and, by that, we mean the chaps too!

Zuleika Gerrish trained as an Art Historian originally. She is the daughter of the late art dealer, Michael Parkin (Motcomb Street, 1972-1999) and artist/art dealer Diana Parkin. Much of her background is in the Arts, having worked for numerous art dealers, auction houses and art advisors. She is a graduate of the Wimbledon Art School and holds her BA (Hons) degree in History of Art from Oxford Brookes.

It was not until 2016 that she had a complete change of career; Zuleika started working part-time for her mother-in-law, Olivia Gerrish, in Grays Antiques. A few hours a week soon became full-time. It was incredible to learn with such an expert with 45 years experience. Zuleika began to see these pieces of jewellery as miniature works of art. Olly stressed the importance of looking for the tiniest and most subtle details on fine jewellery, as you would with a great painting. Zuleika soon wanted to know why and how these little treasures were made, who made them, what the clues were to their history and more. Quite simply, Zuleika had completely fallen in love with antique jewellery and the finest workmanship and artistry.

Fast forward to today, Zuleika is now an FGA (Fellowship of the Gemmology Association) and DGA (Diamond Member of the Gemmological Association). Zuleika is married to architectural historian and ex-Young Georgian Chairman Oliver Gerrish, who is also the main buyer for Parkin & Gerrish.

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

Young Georgian members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering YGdiscount 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.

(Image: V&A Museum)

£40 (excl. lunch)

Chichester is the archetypal Georgian cathedral city, and local historian and author Alan Green will lead this walking tour around it. The visit begins at the Council Chamber (Roger Morris 1731) and adjoining Assembly Room (James Wyatt 1783) where we will be greeted by the Mayor of Chichester, who will show us the Mayor’s parlour with its fine Georgian furniture. The tour will also take in the Market House (John Nash, 1808) and St John’s Chapel (James Elmes, 1812) and two private houses will be visited. Participants to make their own arrangements for lunch at the many eateries in the town. The visit starts and ends at Chichester railway station.

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

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.

£15 members/£18 non-members

How do historians assess a long and intricate period of history, like that known by the label of Georgian Britain? This talk will approach the question by considering two different sets of evidence. The first is provided by people living at the time; the number of people who exclaimed ‘It is an age of this …’ or ‘a century of that’ was surprisingly large, encouraged by the spread of literacy. Second are the retrospective views, such as that from the Victorian artist who found the entire eighteenth century ‘as dull as a wet Saturday afternoon’. Contrasting these highly varied verdicts shows that there was no consensus, either then or later. Penelope Corfield concludes by offering her own view of the era – and invites others to come and share the debate.

Penelope Corfield is an expert on Georgian urban, social and cultural history; and is currently researching the dynamics of inter-personal greetings in the long eighteenth century. She is Professor Emeritus at Royal Holloway, London University; Research Fellow at Newcastle University; and President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

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.

£15 (£10 YGs)

Join the Young Georgians for the premiere of ‘Follies’, a fascinating documentary adaptation of Rory Fraser’s book telling the story of some of Britain’s most interesting follies. This will be accompanied by an exhibition of the exquisite watercolour illustrations (some of which will be for sale on the evening) from the book as well as a short talk from Rory.

Follies, a four-part series of fifteen-minute episodes, follows Rory Fraser as he travels the length of England looking at four of the most significant follies from the last 400 years, from Rushton Triangular Lodge to Castle Howard, Broadway Tower and Faringdon Tower. Rory gets under the skin of this national cabinet of curiosities and understands why these small, elaborate buildings with apparently no purpose, constitute some of England’s most interesting architecture. They act as catalysts for architectural innovation and the self-expression of their zany patrons, they are focal points for literature, landscape and art. And they act as magnets for stories: of Gunpowder Plotters, the Kit Cat Club, Bright Young Things and Nuclear Bunkers. In other words, they are portals to the past where we are reminded that architecture, when freed from function, is itself an art form.

Rory Fraser studied English at Oxford where he wrote his thesis on the relationship between Alexander Pope and William Kent. On graduating, he wrote Follies: An Architectural Journey for Zuleika Books which was described as a ‘compendium of joy’ by The Times, ‘blithely enjoyable’ with ‘charm, amusement and light touch erudition’ by The Spectator, and compared to Evelyn Waugh’s travel writing by the Wall Street Journal. It also featured on BBC Radio London and was book of the week for the LRB and Country Life. Last year, Rory completed an MPhil in Architectural History at Cambridge on John Vanbrugh’s time in Mughal India. He lives in London where he divides his time between writing, lecturing and painting architectural commissions.

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

Young Georgian members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering YGdiscount 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 (£10 YGs)

This talk will focus primarily on the original features found at a 17th-century timber-framed cottage in Suffolk, now home of architectural designer and fellow Young Georgian, Reuben Higgins.  The cottage’s current appearance will be evaluated against not only how it might have appeared when first built, but how it looked throughout its historic usage and decoration.  Reuben will compare fragmentary evidence found at the house alongside examples which survive in houses elsewhere in the province. With particular focus to the changed layout in 1821, when an enterprising owner added a compact Georgian wing to the road frontage of the house, our speaker will consider their high ambitions with only a modest budget, and discuss how they managed to employ a well considered, judicious and provincial usage of otherwise sophisticated details. The audience will then be given a tour of each room focusing on the original features, whilst showing a photograph of it as of 2022 with pinpoints of specific features including: the inglenook fireplace, incised plaster mouldings, and windows, as well as proposed design changes and inspirations.

Reuben Higgins is an architectural designer with a passion for craftsmanship, design, and conservation. Reuben’s design approach is led by sensitivity to material, tradition, and age but doesn’t include (strict) authenticity. He sees the history of architectural design as a well of inspiration, to inform the designs of today, much like the architects of the early 20th century such as Voysey and Mackintosh, and to an extent those during the early 19th, such as Alexander Thompson and Sir John Soane.  For Reuben, architecture is a constantly evolving profession and always has been, but that doesn’t mean he styles himself as a modernist.  His belief in the unbroken, dependable usage of traditional methods and materials, sympathetic design and an understanding of proportion is what classifies him as a traditional designer; style is secondary.

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

Young Georgian members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering YGdiscount 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

Christopher Joll will explore some of the spoils of war seized by British troops during the Georgian period, many of which are now on display in public collections. He will consider the issue of repatriation as well as bringing to light some fascinating historical facts about those spoils of war held in British collections – along the way debunking a number of myths and legends. 

Christopher Joll was educated at Oxford University and the RMA Sandhurst. He was commissioned into The Life Guards in 1968, leaving seven years later following service that included four tours of duty in Northern Ireland. After a career in the City and industry, in 2005 Christopher’s focus turned to writing books and directing national and royal events for armed services charities. Christopher’s recent books, all published by Nine Elms Books, include The Drum Horse in the Fountain: Tales of the Heroes & Rogues in the Guards; Black Ice: The Memoir of Corie Mapp – soldier, double amputee & world champion; and The Imperial Impresario: The Treasures, Trophies & Trivia of Napoléon’s Theatre of Power. In 2023, Nine Elms Books will publish Christopher’s Fire! The Lost Treasures, Trophies & Trivia of Madame Tussaud & Sons’ Exhibition.

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

£5

To celebrate the coming of Spring, the YG Committee is hosting a Spring Drinks Party on Thursday 3rd March.

Please come along from 6.30pm to catch up with fellow YG members at 6 Fitzroy Square. This event is open to both Young Georgians and potential Young Georgians, so please do bring along anyone who might like to find out more about the YGs and the Georgian Group.

The YGs look forward to seeing you there!

If tickets have sold out, please email members@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the waiting list; further tickets may be made available closer to the time and those on the waiting list will be given first preference. 

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

£25

Starting at the site of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens of 1785, this guided tour led by Stephen Bull will be visiting some grand squares such as Princes Square, built in the 1760s and now known as Cleaver Square, which leads to the grand Kennington Park Road (c.1783), and will compare the Square to the modest Courtenay Square built in the early twentieth century by the Duchy of Cornwall in a neo-Georgian style.

Part of a series of four walks from Vauxhall to Southwark. London’s South Bank has always been London’s pleasure ground and Stephen Bull, a long-time resident of the area and a repairer of Georgian buildings, will be looking at the Georgian development of the South Bank from Vauxhall to Southwark in a series of walks to enlighten, educate and amuse. The other walks in the series are:

13 April: Kennington to Lambeth North

4 May: Lambeth North to Waterloo

8 June: Waterloo to Southwark

Please read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

This event is for members and their guests.

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

£15 (£10 YGs)

Join arguably Britain’s leading architectural historian Dr John Martin Robinson for an evening conversation to learn more about his fascinating and multifarious career. Attendees will learn more about an author of almost thirty internationally regarded books, countless articles for magazines and journals, the librarian to the Duke of Norfolk, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary at The College of Arms, and advisor to some of the most important architectural conservation and restoration projects seen in this country during the last century. His biographic masterpiece ‘The Wyatts’ deriving from his thesis at Oxford has ensured his legacy as the leading authority on one of Regency Britain’s most successful architectural dynasties. Guests are to prepare themselves for an evening of enthralling anecdotes, swoon worthy interiors and our speaker’s famously indomitable wit.

Dr. Martin Robinson has been a life-long supporter and former trustee and vice-chairman of the Georgian Group and divides his time between his Georgian country house in Lancashire, a Regency mews house in London and, through his work, the country houses of both Britain and abroad. Guests are invited to join the conversation (hosted by Harrison Goldman, YG Committee), asking Dr. Martin Robinson questions. Copies of his latest book, ‘Holland Blind Twilight’ (Mount Orleans Press, 2021), the second part of his memoirs, will also be available to purchase.

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

Young Georgian members are eligible for a discount on their ticket by entering YGdiscount 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

The Georgian era was an innovative period in English literature and saw the emergence of the English novel. Writers such as Henry Fielding (1707-1754), Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) and Jane Austen (1775-1817) were some of the foremost authors of the age and their novels are notable for their robust depictions of characters from varying levels of society. This lecture will look at how and why novelists presented society in differing ways.

Jeremy Black is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow both of Policy Exchange and of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of many books, including A Subject for Taste: Culture in Eighteenth-Century England; George III: America’s Last King; England in the Age of Shakespeare; and Charting the Past: The Historical Worlds of Eighteenth-Century England. Black is a recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society for Military History.

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

£5 members/£7 non-members

For all their apparent elegance of appearance, the new streets and terraces of Georgian London were, in all but the most elite locations, very densely occupied.

In addition to the occupying household, their servants and apprentices, there were many men and women who lodged in one, two or more rooms the household could spare. Contemporary estimates of the number of lodgers in the capital in Georgian times was around 38,000 people – more than the entire population of Norwich, England’s second city. Some of these lodgers were famous, like Jonathan Swift, Lord Byron or John Keats, others more obscure. This talk looks at the infrastructure of Georgian lodging, how a newcomer to Georgian London found a room, and what life was like in a crowded house shared with strangers who were there to subsidise the landlord’s/lady’s household budget.

Gillian Williamson received her PhD from Birkbeck, University of London in 2014 for her thesis on the 18^th-century Gentleman’s Magazine. She has published on this, on 18^th-century popular politics and most recently on life in Georgian lodgings: Lodgers, Landlords and Landladies in Georgian London (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). She also volunteers with the Georgian Group.  

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

£5 members/£7 non-members

Seaside resorts began to develop in the early eighteenth century. The most successful were old coastal towns such as Hastings, Margate and Weymouth where the basics such as lodgings existed, and simply needed the resort facilities added to.  At first, few facilities were developed because investors believed that this fashion might not last, and the season was very short. As sea bathing became more fashionable, so more local people invested in libraries, assembly rooms, baths and other facilities.  These needed several hundred people around all the time during the season to make money. So small communities rarely had anything other than bathing machines, an assembly room, and perhaps a small library.   Attempts to develop everything from scratch often resulted In bankruptcy.   By 1830, most of the successful ones had similar facilities and fashionable terraced housing. Whereas the failures were half built and often remained so unless connected to a large town by the railway.

The larger resorts became centres for social networking – a key influence on their development.  Some of the letters which describe what visitors saw, particularly those by women, highlight human characteristics we see today.  Women commenting on the looks of their peer group, often somewhat cattily, give us an idea of just how important good looks and a good figure were envied.  Cartoons mock some of the diaphanous clothing of the early 1800s. Doctors letters reveal a desire to ensure that clients kept returning, the tone obsequious.  Developers seeking to attract celebrities to boost numbers adopted a similar stance, often simply adding to their debt by offering free housing.

By 1830 the seaside resorts needed a new look. A period of uncertainty which lasted into the 1850s for some, was followed by the development of different facilities and client groups.

Sue Berry FSA has studied resorts for some time, as part of her broader interest in economic and social change between about 1750 and 1850 and its impact. She usually uses Sussex, where she lives for case studies but always sets them within the appropriate national context.  She has published articles, books and chapters in books about the period.

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