Guided tour of the beautiful 15th C stained glass windows in St Mary’s, followed by a Thameside pub lunch and a visit to Buscot Park, 18th C home of Lord Faringdon, housing a major art collection and famous water garden.
You can see a report on this visit here and more photos here
Following up our March lecture, our first stop (after a comfort break en route) will be to see the 28 stained-glass windows in St Mary’s, Fairford (just over the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border). They are of national importance as they are the only complete surviving set of pre-Reformation mediaeval stained glass windows in the country, attributed to the Flemish glazier Bernard Flower, glazier to King Henry VII. We shall have a guided tour after coffee and biscuits.
After our tour we will have a two course pub lunch (included) at The Trout at Lechlade, a traditional old pub by the Thames dating back to mediaeval times.
After lunch we’ll take the short drive to Buscot Park. The late 18th C house and gardens, including the Faringdon art collection, are leased to the National Trust but still run by Lord Faringdon, who continues to add to the collection. In addition to works by such Old Masters as Rembrandt, Reynolds, Rubens and Van Dyck, the house is home to outstanding works by Pre-Raphaelite artists, especially Burne-Jones’s exquisite Briar Rose series, and many important 20th Century artists such as Eric Ravilious, Graham Sutherland and Ken Howard.
The extensive pleasure gardens are especially notable for the Four Seasons Walled Garden and the Italianate water garden designed by Harold Peto, which creates a link between the house and the lake. We will be free to explore the house and gardens at our own pace with time for a cup of tea before our journey home.
