Events

£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.

The Young Georgians Committee, requests the pleasure of your company at their annual Christmas Party.

Thursday 14th December 2023

At 6 Fitzroy Square

7pm until late, including merry music,  mulled wine and mince pies: cost of £25

Young Georgians are also cordially invited to prepare and present a dish dating from the eighteenth century. Be it a pungent pigeon pie or a scrumptious syllabub, all submissions will be appreciated and thereafter consumed! A prize will be awarded by the committee for the most delectable submission.

Discounted ticket price of £15 if bringing a dish- enter YGdiscount at checkout

Please inscribe your culinary contributions via this digital parchment: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dqqUYawoTbfbPYQGEzDSDK50PV60-2HMafaBaag77AU/edit?usp=sharing

This is a strictly Young Georgian members-only event. If you would like to join as a member click here. 

£25, 11.30am

Bevis Marks Synagogue (opened in 1701) stands in a secluded courtyard approached through a stone archway with wrought-iron gates. Above the entrance is carved in Hebrew the name of the synagogue, “Kahal Kadosh Shaar Asamaim”, which means “Holy Congregation The Gates of Heaven” and expresses the gratitude for the safe refuge that those first Sephardim felt they had found in the City of London. The courtyard is a place of serenity, now surrounded by office buildings, where once stood the congregation’s school, almshouse and orphanage. The Synagogue is a Grade I listed building and is the only synagogue in Europe that has held regular services continuously for over 300 years. This tour will give members the opportunity to see the Synagogue after an extensive restoration project.  

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

Gill Hedley, the author of a new book about Flitcroft, will outline the architect’s life, through a focus on a few key elements–his origins, relations with fellow architects, his own house in Hampstead, and many new discoveries–images will include those that were not possible to appear in the book. Flitcroft is now revealed as so much more than ‘Burlington Harry’ and the talk will include the sad fate of his son, the inheritance case that lasted until the 1860s, and the surprising links between Flitcroft, G.E. Street and the Smithsons.

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.

Bonhams Auctioneers Evening Tour (6pm for a 6:30 talk)

A highlights tour of their upcoming auctions which include fine silver, furniture and decorative arts. The team of Bonhams specialists will be keen to pick out lots that date to the Georgian period including fine tapestries, furniture, a rare plaque attributed to Bertel Thorvaldsen, a pair of candle vases by Matthew Boulton and a monumental pair of George IV silver candelabra being sold from the Stationer’s Company.

There is no charge for this event (open to all Young Georgians and prospective) and we shall probably head to a local pub afterwards. Please kindly let Harrison know if you’d like to attend:  yg@georgiangroup.org.uk

This event is kindly sponsored by Bonhams Auctioneers

£15 members/£18 non-members

In 1779 Stroudwater Canal opened, from the River Severn to Stroud town, soon followed by the Thames & Severn Canal which ran from Stroud up the steep escarpment, through the world’s longest navigable tunnel at Sapperton to join the Thames at Lechlade, thence to London or north to the rising Midlands. It was a remarkable achievement, a daring engineering feat. The canal was not just a highway for trade. It connected locals and the nation in a new way. It needed locks, double locks, hump-back bridges (so the trows and barges could pass below), weirs, winding holes, and more. It generated monumental canal-side buildings built of Cotswold limestone – including a total of more than 200 multi-story Cotswold stone mills.

Surprisingly, despite the arrival of the railways from London and the departure of wool production to Yorkshire the canals remained profitable into the 20C. The Thames & Severn Canal closed in 1933, the Stroudwater only in 1954. Just 18 years later, it took one person to call a public meeting in Stroud’s Subscription Rooms on 12 May 1972 to start the revival. Today, Cotswold Canals Trust has 7,000+ members. Fifty years on, the project is well on its way thanks to harnessing a remarkable variety of skills, to private/public/government collaboration, and to an army of volunteers (900 or so at any one time). Louise Nicholson will tell the story of the Cotswold Canals restoration and revival.

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.

A joint event by Devon Gardens Trust and the Georgian Group

Church Hall, Southernhay United Reform Church, Southernhay East, Exeter, EX1 1QA

The Georgian gentleman’s estate was characteristically embellished by a great diversity of structures all designed to add to the aesthetic appreciation of the landscape. They are one of the pleasures today of visiting historic gardens. These structures were often highly innovative in design, ranging from the obvious adornments such as temples, summerhouses, grottoes, towers, ruins and “follies” – those truly eccentric structures with no obvious function – to buildings with predominantly practical purpose including mausolea, boathouses, dovecotes, stables, kennels, deer pens, barns and cowsheds, all of which could be dressed up to make an architectural impact. Roger White is a leading authority on Georgian landscape architecture whose interest in these buildings was first piqued some fifty years ago and recently culminated in the publication of his book, Georgian Arcadia, Architecture for the Park and Garden which examines the subject from the sublime to the bizarre. In the talk he will explore the diversity and innovation of the buildings, their origins and development as well as their functional and cultural significance.

Roger White is an architectural historian, author and lecturer specialising in the Georgian period. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and has been Secretary to both the Georgian Group and the Garden History Society (precursor to the Gardens Trust.) Copies of Roger’s book will be on sale.

Members of the Georgian Group £10 (plus booking fee) using Promo Code GGMEMBER (Type this in against Promo Code on the booking page then ‘Apply’ to receive this discount). Non members £12 (plus booking fee). Includes refreshments.

The Eventbrite link is https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/georgian-arcadia-architecture-for-park-and-garden-tickets-726333542177?aff=oddtdtcreator

or the Devon Gardens Trust website event details link is https://www.devongardenstrust.org.uk/events/georgian-arcadia-architecture-park-and-garden

£15 members/£18 non-members

George London (d.1714) was probably one of the most important figures in the history of gardens and gardening in reigns of William & Mary and Queen Anne. He ran the famous Brompton Park Nursery from 1681 and he and his business partner Henry Wise designed many great gardens together. However, surprisingly, the foundation of the nursery and the way it was run has not been investigated in great detail and some elements of London’s career, such as his early employment by Henry Compton, Bishop of London, his knowledge of plants and plant collecting and his visits to Holland and France to view plant collections and to bring back plants are rarely discussed.

Dr Sally Jeffery will discuss recent research on London and his career that has revealed many new details.

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.

Members £18/ non-members £20

Lecture held at Silverstone Farm, NR20 5EX given by Lucinda Chetwode.

This lecture will look at the history of Chatsworth and its development in the 18thC, with the expansion of its art collections and changes to the furnishings and gardens. In the mid-18thC the family also inherited the collections of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, which brought other estates, paintings and furniture as well as significant architectural drawings.   6pm-8pm. 

Lucinda is Director of the Chatsworth House Trust and a specialist in historic interior decoration and furnishing. 

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

Within the South Downs National Park there is a rich heritage of country houses which were either substantially altered or built in this period. Concentrating on the many in the Sussex section of the Park, we will explore their stories. At the west end we have Uppark and Stansted, at the east end the little known but very interesting Compton Place. Many can either be visited or seen from footpaths.

The talks 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

George Dance the Elder was Clerk of Works to the Corporation of the City of London from 1735 to his death in 1768 where he oversaw the continued modernisation of the city of London. This position would elevate Dance and his family into the upper echelon of Georgian Society with the family featuring prominently in the arts, architecture and armed forces for four generations.

This lecture will discuss Dance the Elder and his family more broadly, providing a summary of three decades of genealogical research compiled by current members of the family.

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.

An autumn outing for our young members (and potential young members) to meet and catch up at Osterley Park. There is no up-front cost to attend this trip which will be run on similar lines to the Hampton Court visit: attendees will organise their own travel and pay for their own entry. 

The group will meet at Osterley House at 11am and attendees are invited to bring a picnic to enjoy in the park afterwards.

This event is open to Young Georgians and potential Young Georgians.  

£50, 10.30am-4pm

The day will consist of visits to three sites in the Twickenham area. Sandycombe Lodge (Turner’s House) was built by 1813 to the designs of England’s great landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner; working here as his own architect to create a quiet retreat for himself, away from the pressures of the London art world. Catherine Parry-Wingfield will lead this special tour. Pope’s Grotto Preservation Trust has just completed its restoration of Alexander Pope’s Grotto, the last remaining part of his famous villa and gardens, which he built in 1720 on the banks of the Thames. After lunch, we will visit Marble Hill House, winner of the 2022 Georgian Group Architectural Awards prize for Restoration of a Georgian Garden or Landscape. The house is now open after an extensive restoration project as part of Marble Hill Revived.  

 Lunch is included in this visit. 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

The invention and evolution of the Georgian landscape garden liberated garden buildings from the corset of formality, allowing them to structure much more extensive areas of garden and park. One of the leading authorities on Georgian landscape architecture, Roger White explores a genre in which some of the era’s greatest architects – Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor, Gibbs, Kent, Adam, Chambers, Wyatt and Soane – experimented with different forms, styles and new technology, in the process producing some of their most interesting and original ideas. Covering not just the obvious adornments of parks and gardens such as temples, summerhouses, grottoes, towers and ‘follies’, he also describes structures with predominantly practical functions including mausolea, boathouses, dovecotes, stables, kennels, deer pens, barns, and cowsheds, all of which could be dressed up to make an architectural impact in the designed landscape.

This talk is taken from Roger’s forthcoming book of the same name (due for publication later this year) which originated in the exhibition that he organised to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Georgian Group in 1987.

This talk has been rescheduled from the autumn of 2022. Please note that this talk takes place on a Wednesday.

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, 2pm

Grade I listed St George’s Church, Ramsgate built 1824-27 is currently on the Historic England Buildings at Risk register. An ambitious regeneration project, St George Project 200 will begin shortly, with the restoration scheduled to be completed by the 200th anniversary of the church in October 2027. The tour will give members the opportunity to see the church before this work begins.  

This visit is for Georgian Group members only. Refreshments included. 

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

Image: Rob Baker

£15 members/£18 non-members

This talk from Oliver Flory, General Manager of the Georgian Group, will examine the ‘consumption’ of exotic animals over the course of the long 18th century and pose the questions; to what extent were exotic animals treated as consumer goods and how abundant were they in the 18th century? It will focus initially on the trade; the merchants, animal dealers, and itinerant traders, their places of business, and public menageries such as that at Exeter Change. Secondly, it will deal with how animals were ‘consumed’ and treated in the home; as pets, as ornaments to a landscape, as denizens of a menagerie collection, as scientific curiosities, and overall as signifiers of prestige and taste, as well as examining the industries associated with animal ownership. Thirdly, it will attempt to survey the industries that relied on by-products from exotic species and how these were used by society at large.

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.

A recording of this lecture will be made available after the event. If you would like to purchase a ticket to watch the recording only, please click 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.

£15 members/£18 non-members

In the heart of Hyderabad stands a majestic building with a colossal Corinthian portico. Once the British Residency of Hyderabad State, it was constructed at the start of the 19th century as the official residence of the envoys of the East India Company. The grand mansion was the central location for the events of William Dalrymple’s book White Mughals, and became a visual symbol of power, dramatically changing Hyderabad’s architecture.

Since India’s independence it has been the pioneering Osmania University College for Women, and was recently upgraded to a university in its own right, the Telangana Mahila Viswa Vidyalayam. The building has now been restored following a major conservation programme coordinated by World Monuments Fund.

Conservation architect Anuradha Naik will explore the history of the structure, its occupants and its influence, and give a detailed account of the revelations unearthed by the recent restoration. Its design has traditionally been attributed to a 22-year-old East India Company engineer, but Naik presents the new theory that its true designer may have been the notable British architect Henry Holland.

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

A recording of this lecture will be made available after the event. If you would like to purchase a ticket to watch the recording only, please click here.

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, 11am

Join us for an exclusive introductory talk from the curator of the Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, London. Discover what fashion can tell us about life in the 18th century, a revolutionary period of trade, travel and technology which fuelled fashion trends across all levels of society. Delve into the Georgians’ style story and get up close to magnificent paintings, prints and drawings by artists including Gainsborough, Zoffany and Hogarth, as well as luxurious textiles, sparkling jewellery, and a range of accessories from snuff boxes to swords. After the talk members will be able to explore the exhibition.  

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.