News

London Bridged: 3,500 years of Crossing the Thames by Charlie Forman. Lecturer and London Walking Guide Charlie Forman gave us a fascinating historical account of thedevelopment of bridges across the Thames, from the time of the bronze age period to the present day. Using a state of the art pinpoint magnifier, Charlie was able to show us details of archaeological remains of ancient bridges still ...

Curator, lecturer and author Dr Amy Lim gave us a most enlightening lecture on the uphill struggle that women faced to be recognized as serious artists from the 16th– 20th Centuries. Focusing on just 8 female artists, who were either British or who had lived in Britain, out of the 112 that make up the Exhibition currently at Tate Britain (from the 12th June – ...

Forty one members of the Society enjoyed an outing to Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury,  the family seat of the  English branch of the Rothschild family. Built between 1874-1885 and designed by the French architect G.H Destailleur in the Neo Classical style, it is very reminiscent of a French palace. Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1898)  created it as a country weekend retreat to entertain his friends ...

Our outing to Quebec House and Titsey Place happened to fall on an unexpectedly sunny day. Twenty six members of the Society left Grayshott at 9a.m in the coach and arrived in the attractive town of Westerham, where Quebec House is located. Originally built in the 1500s, and initially called Spiers House, it became the childhood home of General James Wolfe, eldest son to Edward ...

There will be few who have not seen Thomas Brooke’s famous picture of RNLI’s poster girl, Grace Darling. Former curator of Greenwich Maritime Museum and writer, Dr James Taylor, gave members an interesting and well illustrated talk on why she is so famous. Grace was the seventh of nine children of an English lighthouse keeper and she gained notoriety when she and her father rescued ...

Former curator of the Museum of London specialising in the decorative arts, Amanda Herries started her lecture by showing us stark examples of how jewellery can be worn for adornment. A tribeswoman wearing many necklaces from her shoulders to her chin, representing wealth and status. A man’s face covered with lacy tattoos and heavy metal piercing — both changing their original persona. Britain from 1550 ...

Val Woodgate gave us a most interesting and comprehensive overview of the development of Art in Australia from the European period extending over the last 230 years, though she did point out that that the Aborigines had been there for 13-15 Millenia and that their art, unlike Western Art, was always religious and spiritual – never just art for art’s sake. In 1770 Captain Cook ...

Presenter, lecturer and guide Simon described how due to the growing interest in having national art collections (France opened the Louvre in 1789, the original Rijsmuseum was opened in 1798 and  the Prado in 1819), Britain decided to open a “National Gallery” in the home of John Julius Angertein in London whose eclectic collection of  38 paintings was bought by the then government in the ...

Our February lecture, ‘The Art of Trickery,’ was given by Ian Keable a former accountant now a magician. Two of the earliest representations of magicians are from the Low Countries. “The Juggler” from 1494 by the school of Bosch shows a magician performing the cup and balls trick - at the same time the foolish punter is being pick-pocketed from behind.  Bruegel’s 1565 print “Fall ...

Almost everyone has played Monopoly at sometime or other in their life as it is such a popular and well known game, but where did it all begin? Arts Society Lecturer, Photographer and current President of the Surrey Photographic Society Roger Mendham took us on a journey around the origins of this game and the named places on the board. Originally known as “The Landlord’s ...

Ernest H Shepard was an artist, illustrator and cartoonist whose illustrations to A. A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” and Kenneth Graham’s “Wind in the Willows” are the most well-known and enduring of all his works. James Campbell, lecturer and author of two books on E. H. Shephard’s life and illustrations gave us a humorous and entertaining lecture on a much broader view of E.H. Shepard’s work, ...

For the first Virtual Tour of the season, we were taken by our excellent guide, Simon Whitehouse, on a journey through the life of Oscar Wilde: Writer, Wit and First Modern celebrity. Born in Dublin on 16th October 1854 to eccentric parents – Dr William Wilde, an ear, eye and throat specialist to Queen Victoria, and Jane Speranza Wilde, a published poet and nationalist, Oscar grew up ...