To book any WMF Britain event, please click on title or call 020 7730 5344
(credit cards accepted).
Jul 2009
Stowe: Building Arcadia (NEW DATE!)
Tue 14
Jul
10:30
**FULLY BOOKED**
Due to popular demand World Monuments Fund has added an additional Study Day at Stowe House.
The day will be led by Dr Jonathan Foyle (Chief Executive, WMF) and Anna McAvoy (Stowe House Preservation Trust).
Stowe House is an encyclopaedia of eighteenth-century landscape and architecture. The estate took a century to take shape from the 1670s to the 1770s before the Temple-Grenville family’s fortunes declined. The astonishingly beautiful landscape is peppered with follies, temples, lakes and arbours, with the mansion at its heart, telling a story of the changing culture and politics of the Georgian era.
Members £42
Non Members £54
Includes full day at Stowe, transfers from Milton Keynes station (if required), morning refreshments, lunch and afternoon tea.
Jul 2009
Henry VIII: Builder and Destroyer
Thu 30
Jul
19:30
Public Talk
2009 marks the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's coronation. He remains one of the most distinctive of our monarchs and is celebrated at historic sites such as Hampton Court as a patron of the arts. Earlier this year, Jonathan Foyle Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain and broadcaster, helped Time Team excavate Henry's only major palace commission in the first half of his reign - the virtually forgotten New Hall, in Essex. To fill out the picture, Jonathan explains on BBC4 (June 17 and 24) how Henry was both a creator and a destroyer. The theme seems highly appropriate at St Albans where, toward the end of his reign, Henry had the monastic precinct razed- but for the townspeople the abbey church itself would also have been lost.
So, through an analysis of Henry VIII's architecture, this talk asks: where does the balance lay? Should Henry's contribution to Britain's cultural legacy be celebrated or reviled?
Thursday 30th July at 7.30pm
Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, Chapter House
Ticket price: £9.00
Oct 2009
David Starkey, History and Things
Wed 28
Oct
19:00
Public Talk
For too long, history has been dominated by the written word. In fact, written evidence is only one of the myriad survivals of the past, and things – buildings, paintings, weapons, textiles and landscape itself – are just as important. This lecture by the inimitable David Starkey takes the example of Henry VIII, whose 500th anniversary this is, and shows the extraordinary revision which happens when things are put back into the history of his reign.
Kindly sponsored by Grayling (www.grayling.com)
Royal Geographical Society, Central London
Members: £8.00
Non-members: £13.00
(Early booking discount is applicable until 31st July 2009. After this date ticket prices will increase)
Nov 2009
Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures: A Life of Mary Anning
Wed 4
Nov
19:00
Public Talk
Acclaimed author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier, will be discussing her new novel Remarkable Creatures, about the 19th century fossil hunter Mary Anning, who discovered some of the first complete specimens of Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs on the beaches near Lyme Regis, one of which was purchased for Stowe House. She will focus on Anning’s connection to place and her tussle with more conventional men of science.
Kindly sponsored by Symm (www.symm.co.uk)
Members: £8.00
Non-members: £13.00
Royal Geographical Society, Central London
(Early booking discount is applicable until 31st July 2009. After this date ticket prices will increase)
