Past Lectures

Stamford Raffles, Art Collector and Discoverer of Singapore

Portmeirion

Tuesday 21st May 2024 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Denise Heywood

Raffles, whose name is synonymous with a luxury hotel rather than the greatest Buddhist temple in the world, was a scholar, polymath and the enlightened colonial administrator of Java. In 1804 he discovered the C8th temple of Borobudur, hidden under volcanic ash. He founded Singapore and also acquired wondrous artefacts in Java, such as shadow puppets and textiles, now in the British Museum.

Discovering MacDonald Gill: Artist and Mapmaker

Covent Garden Piazza

Tuesday 18th June 2024 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Caroline Walker

MacDonald Gill, brother of the sculptor Eric Gill, was an architect, illustrator, graphic designer and letterer, best known for his eye-catching pictorial map posters for London Underground and the Empire Marketing Board. He created beautiful painted map panels for buildings, magnificent murals for churches and Cunard liners as well as the alphabet and regimental badges for the Imperial War Graves Commission.

Arts and Crafts of Mexico, Past and Present

Punch1919

Tuesday 16th July 2024 at 10.45am 

MARY GLEN MEMORIAL LECTURE

Lecturer: Chloe Sayer

Arts and crafts remain an essential part of Mexican life. After the Spanish conquest of 1521, the techniques and art styles of Europe merged with those of the New World. Drawing on skills inherited from Aztec, Maya and Spanish predecessors, makers bring a modern vision to ancient traditions. Exquisite textiles, silver jewellery, wooden dance-masks, imaginative toys and fine pottery are still used in many regions

Grace Darling and the Fine Art of Saving Lives at Sea

Gertrude Bell

Tuesday 17th September 2024 at 10.45am

Lecturer: James Taylor

Darling’s daring rescue of steamship passengers off the Northumberland coast in 1838 brought her international fame. Discover more about her bravery and short life and the artistic contribution that has helped to keep her in the public eye. Grace became the ‘poster girl’ of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and was the first woman awarded their medal for gallantry.

Murder, Mystery, and Paint – the Story of Walter Sickert

London Underground Design

Tuesday 15th October 2024 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Michael Howard

The well-known crime writer Patricia Cornwell has claimed that the celebrated artist Walter Sickert was responsible for the murders attributed to the infamous Jack the Ripper. This lecture will attempt to untangle the truth of this claim following a trail of murder, mystery, mayhem and paint. Was this much-loved, colourful and enigmatic painter Jack the Ripper – or not?

Burton Constable, the House and its People

History of Wine

Tuesday 19th November 2024 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Jenny Scruton

Burton Constable Hall is a large Elizabethan country house set in a park designed by Capability Brown. With its 18th & 19th century interiors and a remarkable C18th ‘cabinet of curiosities’, the rooms at Burton Constable are filled with spectacular collections that survive from when the Hall was the Constable family home.

How to ‘Read’ the English Country Church: The Tudors to the Commonwealth

Caravaggio painting

Tuesday 21st January 2025 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Rev'd Dr Nicholas Henderson

A walk in the country; you come upon the typical village country church. This lecture will help you look at the architecture inside and out, the church furniture, those mysterious nooks and crannies, high and low. How and why did it all come to look this way? This is a fascinating journey through English history unravelled before your eyes. “I can’t make you experts” says Nicholas Henderson, “but I can teach you enough to amaze your friends on that day in the countryside.”

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

Alcott sisters

Tuesday 18th February 2025 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Lucy Hughes-Hallett

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the favourite of King James I - who addressed him as ‘my sweet child and wife’ - and subsequently chief minister to King Charles I. Buckingham was a beauty, and he surrounded himself with beautiful things. He enjoyed exquisite clothes, like the fabulous white silk suit encrusted with diamonds that he wore to visit the Queen of France. He was a superb dancer. When he cut capers during a court masque King James startled visiting ambassadors by shouting out ‘By God, George, I love you!’

Music in Art

English garden

Tuesday 18th March 2025 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Sophie Matthews

Music in Art looks at how the depiction of musical instruments from the Middle Ages to the 18th century evolves, focusing on instruments that Sophie plays, so as well as looking at images by artists such as Bruegel, Bosch and Hogarth she gives musical demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted

A Concise History of Our Great British Parks

Villa E1027

Tuesday 15th April 2025 at 10.45am

Lecturer: Paul Rabbitts

This really is a fascinating insight into the history of one of our greatest ever institutions - our Great British Public Park. This talk illustrates their origins from the great Royal Parks to the Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, to their Victorian heyday. It discusses what makes a great park, it’s ‘parkitecture’ with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains, lidos, palm houses and to their wonderful floral displays, to their great decline in the sixties, seventies and eighties.