Grace 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 living in the Brownsman and Longstone Lighthouses, alongside the artists who helped to keep her in the public eye well into the 1970s. She became the ‘poster girl’ of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution that celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2024, and was the first woman to be awarded their medal for gallantry.

As Hitler’s forces invaded Poland in September 1939, men and women from London’s national museums, galleries and archives forged extraordinary plans to evacuate their collections to safety. Utilising country houses from Buckinghamshire to Cumbria, tube tunnels, Welsh mines and Wiltshire quarries, a dedicated bunch of unlikely heroes became the front line in our heritage war against the Nazis, dispatching our national treasures out of the capital and into a series of amazing and secret wartime adventures.

There is something incomparably romantic about a long-lost country house, and although Britain still possesses some of the finest of these architectural treasures to be found anywhere, many have been destroyed. A single ruined lodge or pavilion, an over-grown drive or group of mature trees are sometimes all that now exists to remind us of a lost house and pleasure-ground. This lecture tells the story of just some of these losses to our National Heritage – destroyed for a variety of reasons; from neglect, arson, enemy action, incompetence, family rivalry, financial disaster or even insanity! In the mid-twentieth century particularly, profound social change, wars, high taxation and bad management often contributed to the demise of many grand houses. Hundreds were demolished after 1945 – some beautiful, some ugly, but each lost house, as the lecture shows, is fascinating in its own way.

Christopher Wren was a promising young 17th century mathematician and inventor. With strong links to the Church and Crown, he grew up in politically challenging as well as scientifically exciting times.  Wren could have turned his hand to a range of endeavours from scientific invention to designing a grand new royal Palace of Whitehall and after the Great Fire of London 1666 proposed an ambitious new grid design for the City of London. Instead, over the next 50 years Wren rebuilt 51 of the City’s 80 parish churches that had burned down with huge variety and ingenuity. In so doing Wren created the auditory church, setting the standard of the new reformed Church of England for the next 200 years and as it spread across the globe, whilst creating works of architectural genius - such as his domes and the geometrical staircase in St Paul’s cathedral - that helped establish the great 18thcentury metropolis of London.

(He was born in East Knoyle; 2023 is the tercentenary of his death.)

(photo copyright: Kevin Caldwell)

Over the past 150 years, artists across the world – including the lecturer herself – have used the humble chair, in a whole variety of art mediums, as a conduit for ideas on protest, war, absence, memory, domestic life and female identity. We will follow the empty chair through the art movements of the last century including Schiele, Magritte, Warhol, Beuys, Rauschenberg and others.

The glories of the manuscripts are one thing. The men (and women) who made them are another. Who was wielding the quills in the thousand years before the Reformation and how much do we know about them as individuals? The answer is that we know a surprisingly large amount and we find that, despite their breath-taking skill, they had feet of clay just as we have; they got angry and fell out with each other, they worried about their work, they complained continually about their labour and the conditions in which they worked (not unreasonably) and they made mistakes. All these things can be seen in the bibles, books of psalms and gospels and numerous other works prepared in the scriptorium.

We go behind the scenes, so to speak, to eavesdrop on their conversation and watch them at work.

The story of men’s tailoring over the past 200 years, told through the lives of the men who commissioned and created it.

This lecture deals with makers and their craft in Savile Row, Jermyn Street and elsewhere, and how they shaped the way men dress.

It also looks at the wider cultural shifts since Regency times which affected how men present themselves.

Late Eighteenth Century England was a place of prosperity and relative peace. Young men, having travelled the continent on a Grand Tour, returned to England to reshape their County Estates using the classical language they had seen abroad. In 1796, at the height of this Neo-Classical revival, the eccentric millionaire William Thomas Beckford chose to create a vast Gothic mansion, Fonthill Abbey to be his home.

The unique qualities of Fonthill mirror the extraordinary character of Beckford, a man who inherited a vast fortune as a child of ten and was described in newspaper reports of the time as England’s Richest Commoner. Beckford was a visionary, an author, musician and art collector who spent almost all of his exceptional wealth in the pursuit of art and architecture including the remarkable Fonthill Abbey.

The story of Fonthill is one of drama, intrigue, and ultimate collapse, as Beckford's fortune became irrevocably absorbed in his fantastical architectural vision.

When Lucy Kemp-Welch’s painting 'Colt Hunting in the New Forest' (now in the Tate Gallery) was first exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 1897 it caused a sensation. The Times predicted that the artist would ‘very rapidly become our most successful and popular painter of horses,’ and perhaps the first female Royal Academician in over a century. Born in Bournemouth in 1869, Kemp-Welch studied at the Herkomer School of Art in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and added to her fame with her defining illustrations to the 1915 edition of Anna Sewell’s 1877 novel, Black Beauty. She also made a number of important paintings of the First World War. This lecture explores her life and work, and coincides with a new biography written by David Haycock.

How do dealers, auctioneers and museum staff determine whether a piece is by one painter or another? What role does the signature play, (answer = limited) and what are the key clues to look for when deciding who painted the picture? 

Artists before the 18th century usually worked with a number of assistants around them, who were trained to reproduce the style of the master as closely as possible. How can we study these workshop productions, distinguishing between master and pupil, master and copyists? In this lecture, we consider clues, weigh up their relative usefulness, and learn some of the tricks of the connoisseur.

On 11th June 2024 the Arts Society Devizes visited the delightful Tudor manor, Athelhampton House. Unexpected road closures made the journey on a 50 seater coach through small Dorset lanes an interesting experience in itself and by the time we arrived we were very ready for our coffee and shortcake.
Suitably refreshed we then started our scheduled ninety minute tour with the estate manager, Owen, a man so steeped in the history of the house and such an enthusiastic and humorous guide that the tour turned into one of two hour length. It was the most fascinating tour, from the delightful Tudor hall with amazing hammer beamed roof to the kitchen with such a wide spanned brick arch over the fire that it seemed to defy gravity. In between we learned the history of a wonderful plaster ceiling, the original bombed by the Luftwaffe while it was awaiting shipping to the USA, of the priests who hid in the priest’s hole and the sad story of the murder that occurred in the bedrooms and the ghost that still haunts as a result.
After sampling the delights of lunch in the café we turned our attention to the gardens. We were told that we would spy a few weeds as the garden is entirely organic, no pesticides used. Those few weeds did nothing to detract from the beauty of the flower beds, the fountains and famous yew trees. At the end of each of the many nooks and crannies we found a seat on which to sit and take in the view. All too soon we had to return to the coach only to find Owen waiting for us, eager to impart still more information before we left.
A lovely day and possibly one of the best trips we have run.

Wiltshire art gallery & sculpture gardens, near Calne, showcasing work of internationally acclaimed artists.

On Wednesday 10th July 2024 the Arts Society enjoyed a drive yourself trip to the Talos Sculpture Park and Art Gallery in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside at Broads Green. At the request of Richard Atkinson-Willes who owns and runs the gallery we split into two groups, one visited in the morning and one in the afternoon. The low numbers of each group ensured a very personal and relaxed visit.

Greeted by Richard, we gathered in a wonderfully restored building that we were told was formerly a cart and milking shed belonging to Bowood estate; the flooring comprised huge cobblestones that were suspected of once being part of the Roman road running near to the house.

Richard also runs a bronze foundry and one of the first items that we saw on our tour was an amazing life size sculpture of Queen Elizabeth 11 sitting on her favourite horse, Burmese. We were told that the bronze, by Caroline Wallace, is normally at Sandhurst but as it had been cast at the Talos Foundry it had been especially lent for this year’s exhibition. It was beautiful but it was only the first of the many amazing pieces that we discovered in the delightful gardens, a vibrant mixture of herbaceous shrubs and wildflowers, designed by Richard and his wife specifically for the purpose of displaying artworks; tiny wrens peeked out from bushes, a young deer on the lawn appeared startled at our approach and a whippet turned to greet us. The sun shone down on us and it was totally entrancing.

Over tea and homemade cake, surrounded by more artworks including ceramics, glass and textiles, Richard explained to us the process of casting in bronze, a process little changed since the days of the Greeks and Egyptians. Then a final chance to wander the gardens in the sunshine before deciding whether or not to make a purchase. At least one little wren and one scampering hare found a new home that day.

In this Special Interest Day we will look at the loveliest historic cities of Central Asia with three lectures on the cities of the Silk Road:

• - The Golden Road to Samarkand,
• - Bokhara: the Dome of Islam and
• - Khiva: a Desert Dream World.

These talks are based around several visits made personally by our lecturer, Jane Angelini, in the last ten years and the day will follow the journeys made, including some lively anecdotes. There will be plenty of background information about peoples, places and their cultural legacy, all backed with superb images.

Click here to see the Details and Booking Form.

Please complete the booking form and return to Alice Boyd as detailed on the form.

This Special Interest Day will build up your understanding of the cultural riches and richness of Rome. From Ancient Rome’s breath-taking engineering to Renaissance Rome’s obsession with beauty and brilliance and finishing with Baroque Rome’s stupefying theatricality.

Click here to see the Details and Booking Form.

Please complete the booking form and return to Alice Boyd as detailed on the form.

The day will be divided into three talks :

One: Classical Rome and its Legacy.
The Pantheon, Colosseum and Basilica of Maxentius. We shall look at these three inspirational buildings each with a different form and function. These edifices, seen in ruin ever since the Sack of Rome in the 5th Century AD, provide the basis for understanding Renaissance painting and sculpture.

Two: The Rise of the Renaissance
Frescoes by Fillipino Lippi in the Carafa Chapel, Michelangelo's St Peter's Pieta, and Raphael's Stanze della Segnatura allow us to trace the development of theology, philosophy, and aesthetics with the emergence of the High Renaissance. We shall look at bright, intelligent frescoes and a sculpture of breath-taking brilliance.

Three: The Drama of the Baroque
Caravaggio's painting in the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi, Bernini’s San Andrea al Quirinale and Bernini's Ecstasy of San Theresa, are three of the most celebrated Baroque embellishments in Rome. A gritty series of paintings by a notorious sinner, a scandalous religious sculpture group, and interactive architecture by the Baroque’s mastermind will allow us to understand the context and purpose of the art and architecture of 17th century Rome.

Three lectures on New York in the 1920's.

SAIL: sail in style by luxury transatlantic liner in the golden days of the Blue Riband

SWEAT: see how the Ashcan School of American painters depicted the daily lives of the labourers whose sweat helped to build the city

SPARKLE: the tale of how Tiffany & Co started with a loan of $1000 and a small bric-a-brac shop…

Click for further details of the lectures.

Print off the booking form and return to Alice: Booking form