The Georgian period gave us many of Britain’s most beautiful buildings – in cities, towns and villages. Yet much of our Georgian inheritance remains in danger...

£15 members/£18 non-members

At a time of increased pressure for new urban development, where there is a focus on either object-based architecture or the rolling out of developer-designed suburban sprawl, there is a concern that the lessons learned about the creation of a general attractive ‘townscape’ or ‘streetscape’ have become forgotten or obscured. Ptolemy Dean will discuss his new book ‘Streetscapes: Navigating Historic English Towns’.

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

Spring will have sprung by the end of March, so come and spend a sunny morning exploring the history and architecture of the streets and gems around Aldwych and the Strand.

The area of Aldwych was an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Ludenwic and is now home to Somerset House and the Edwardian town planning of Kingsway.  The Strand was the site of the medieval Savoy Palace, while numerous grand houses belonging to the aristocracy and the Church graced the banks of the River Thames.  Canaletto and Monet painted the scene, Benjamin Franklin frequented its coffee houses and the Victorians embanked its waterways.

On this spring saunter, we will explore disused tube stations, “Roman” baths, Royal Peculiars and toy shops.  We will discuss the lyrics to Oranges and Lemons, and venture to the grandeur of the Adelphi Buildings via Australia, Croatia and Kaspar the Cat, and we won’t forget Eleanor of Castille and John of Gaunt.

The Walk will be led by Meg Ryder, a Londoner who hails from Pimlico.  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.

Saturday 22nd March, 3pm

meeting Point TBC

£15 members/£18 non-members

Hugh Petter will set out some of the key issues that have resulted in the lamentable quality of new housing in the UK today before explaining how a rediscovery of the principles of stewardship, rooted in the eighteenth century and pioneered by His Majesty The King, has helped start a new movement with landowners across the country who are determined to make a difference.

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

£5 members/£7 non-members

Clear window glass of the long 18th and 19th centuries is a remarkable product of its age. Within current conservation practice and planning, recent research shows that it is understood and valued less well than other building materials. This talk/lecture will examine elements that contribute to its significance.

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

£30, morning

This visit to Stoneleigh Abbey will begin our series of events to coincide with Jane Austen 250 celebrations in 2025. Stoneleigh Abbey was founded by the Cistercians in 1154. One of the seats of the Leigh family, Stoneleigh Abbey has played house to several people of note, including King Charles I, Queen Victoria, and novelist Jane Austen. 

Between 1714 and 1726 a new palatial four-storey fifteen-bay west wing was built to designs by architect Francis Smith of Warwick and provides an impressive range of state apartments. 

After many tragic events, including a fire in 1960, the house was left in a run-down state that could no longer be looked after by the Leigh family so was sold to a preservation charitable trust. This failed, but the Abbey was then saved by a new independent charitable trust.  

 The event is for members only. Please read our terms and conditions before booking. 

Sunday 17th April, 2.30pm. £8

Join the Young Georgian’s for a tour of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Royal Hospital Road, London, SW3 4SR

Young Georgian Members Only

£15 members/£18 non-members

As a postgraduate student, Charles Saumarez Smith spent a lot of time working on John Vanbrugh in connection with his designs for Castle Howard. He developed a different view of his relationship to Nicholas Hawksmoor from the current orthodoxy, partly from reading his correspondence with Henry Joynes, the Clerk of Works at Blenheim. It was the opposite of what you might expect: here were the letters of an architect who was hard working, conscientious, deeply involved in all aspects of Blenheim’s construction. He has have now written a biography, John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture, to be published in advance of the tercentenary of his death in 2026. This talk will discuss a new interpretation.

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

Gothic architecture never quite went away in England. It reached its nadir, in general esteem and new buildings built, c. 1680– 1720, and thereafter recovered as a new generation discovered the style. From that point, ‘Gothic Survival’ architecture, built by masons, was paralleled by early ‘Gothic Revival’ buildings, designed by architects including William Kent, James Gibbs, Sanderson Miller and Henry Keene. Steven Brindle considers the various strands of Gothic architecture and decoration, its relationship to antiquarianism, how the style was used, and its various meanings in Early Georgian England.

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

£50, 10.30am- 3pm

Sheringham Hall, close to the North Norfolk coast, is a fine medium-sized country house designed by Humphry Repton and his son, John Adey Repton, 1812-18 for the Upcher family. Repton considered the house and park his masterpiece. By kind permission of Paul Doyle and Gergely Battha-Pajor we will see the ground floor, including the elegant library with its original bookcases, and our visit will end with a glass of wine.

Afterwards we will have an opportunity to walk in the park, with George Carter talking to us about Repton’s landscape as described in the Red Book, which survives in the RIBA library. Repton not only chose the site for the house but was also instrumental in finding the estate for Abbott Upcher. The whole ensemble is what he termed a “creation” by which he meant that, as there was no principal house or designed park in place, the blank canvas presented him with the opportunity to manage the approaches, the views and the orientation of the house in an unusually unfettered way. The park has spectacular views of the North Norfolk coast which are cleverly managed to unfold from the principal approach.

Lunch is not included, but members’ are encouraged to bring a picnic to enjoy in the grounds.

 The event is for members only. Please read our terms and conditions before booking. 

£5 members/£7 non-members

From a derelict shell to a vibrant tea house: discover the award-winning conservation work that rescued the Camellia House at Wentworth Woodhouse from Historic England’s Building at Risk Register. Architects Donald Insall Associates will discuss how the team transformed the Grade II*-listed building and touch on their wider work at Wentworth Woodhouse.

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

£5 members/£7 non-members

In this lecture, based on his PhD research and work supported by the Dunscombe Colt Fellowship, Matthew Lloyd Roberts will explore the various ways in which ideas about architecture and the built environment were disseminated in print and periodical culture at unprecedented scale in Georgian England. In a wideranging discussion from the gendering of architectural connoisseurship to the public relations campaigns of the New Churches Commission to disputes over quality of brickmakers’ products, this lecture will shed new light on the discursive world of architectural production enabled through new paradigms of searchability within the Digital Humanities.

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

Friday 6th June 2025, 11 – 4:  £50

George Carter and Caroline Knight have arranged a visit to Great Yarmouth, a town which was hugely prosperous in the 18thC and has many Georgian listed buildings. Most of these are within the well-preserved medieval walls and are therefore concentrated in a fairly small area. The day is to be based at St George’s church (1714) now a community theatre, where there will be an introductory talk by former mayor Barry Coleman, followed by a talk about the work of the Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust by Darren Barker, who runs it. We will walk round King Street and South Quay to see the grand merchant’s houses. The main streets are linked by narrow lanes, ‘The Rows’ with very small houses where the workers lived. We will have lunch at the theatre in its modern café, designed by Hopkins Architects as part of the restoration scheme of the church. We will also visit the Royal Naval Hospital (1809) converted by Kit Martin in 1996 into terrace housing and apartments, and the Britannia Monument (1817) by William Wilkins, which has been recently restored. This was built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, its inscription records ‘This great man Norfolk boasts her own.’ The attractive Fishermen’s Almshouses (1702) built to house ‘decayed fishermen’ is still occupied as almshouses and will also be seen.

Many of Yarmouth’s listed buildings are at risk but a small group of dedicated, mainly local conservationists are developing restoration strategies and finding new uses for problematic buildings, and in the process training local young people in the specialist conservation building skills that are needed.

 The event is for members only. Please read our terms and conditions before booking.