October 2026
Alchemy and Adventure
Colour may be taken for granted these days but it was not always so. Merchants provided tapis rock, cochineal grano and alchemists prepared deadly concoctions. Paint recipes were closely guarded; this lecture takes us on a journey to find and experience colour. Lecturer: Lynne Gibson. Lynne is a freelance lecturer in the History of Art as well as in…
September 2026
Carried on Galleons, Borne by Winds
Coveted by princely collectors, precious artefacts from China adorned palaces across Europe. By the mid-18thcentury the popularity of these luxury arts from China inspired a passion for chinoiserie: the imaginative recreation of a vision of Cathay in porcelain, silver, furniture and architecture. This lecture shows how these desirable luxury goods were traded from China to Europe. Lecturer: Anne Howarth.…
July 2026
The Secret Passages of Staffordshire
Staffordshire has many secret passages running under the landscape. These tunnels connect castles, monasteries, pubs, churches and manor houses. This lecture outlines the reasons for their existence. Lecturer: James Wright.james is an award-winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their…
June 2026
Monday 8th June: Van Dyck and the court of Charles 1
This lecture opens with Van Dyck’s work in the princely courts of Europe and then moves to the brilliant court of Charles I and his portraits of court members. Lecturer: Duncan Ferguson Duncan has had a career in teaching beginning in Devon and ending his career after 25 years in Staffordshire schools. He volunteers…
May 2026
Monday 11th May: English women and the French Revolution
Early in the French revolution, adventurous English women writers visited Paris. Some stayed there; Mary Wollstonecraft was there for the execution of Louis XV1, Grace Dalrymple Elliott and Fanny Burney participated and observed. A deeply researched lecture on some fascinating women. Lecturer: Karin Fernald Karin is known for her lectures on personalities from the eighteenth and…
April 2026
Monday 13th April: The Lewis Chessmen and What Happened to Them
A personal look at the twelfth-century ivory Lewis Chessmen, which have bewitched the speaker in the British Museum for some fifty-five years, and the adventures to which they have led him: bilingual books, films, explorations, adventures, replicas and even H. Potter and his peer group. Lecturer: Irving Finkel. Irving is a British philologist and Assyriologist. He is…
March 2026
Monday 9th March: The Overshadowed
Chantal considers some of the many reasons for a good artist’s obscurity, from the brevity of his life to the misfortune of his being born and working in the shadow of a larger reputation, such as Leonardo or Rembrandt. But above all it is an excuse to spend an hour viewing beautiful paintings and finding…
February 2026
Monday 9th February: Pioneering Women Photographers 1860-1920
From the earliest days of photography, women claimed this new art for their own. This lecture offers a new vision of the Victorians, seen through the lenses of pioneering women. It includes the intimate fantasies of Clementina, Lady Hawarden; the soft-focus story-telling made by Julia Margaret Cameron; and radical portraits captured by the Suffrage campaigner…
January 2026
Monday 12th January: Opening the doors – a brief history of country house visiting
Since at least the Middle Ages castles, monasteries and country houses have welcomed visitors. Gradually a pattern for such visits developed, with great houses open to the respectable gentry and upper middle classes, who were shown around by the housekeeper or steward. Later pressure led to the formation of the National Trust and the Historic Houses…
November 2025
Monday 10th November: Carried on galleons, borne by winds, porcelain, silk and the lustrous arts of Cathay
Coveted by princely collectors, precious artefacts from China adorned palaces across Europe. By the mid-18th Century, the popularity of these luxury arts from China inspired a passion for chinoiserie: the imaginative recreation of a fanciful vision of Cathay in porcelain, silver, furniture and architecture. This lecture shows these desirable luxury goods were traded from China…
October 2025
Monday 13th October: The Enigma of Edward Elgar
One of our greatest composers, Edward Elgar was an extraordinary man. Brought up in a provincial town, his father a piano tuner and the owner of a music shop, Elgar was completely self-taught as a musician, evidence of the strong determination behind his original and unique genius. His path to recognition was hard and bitter. …
September 2025
Monday 8th September: Matisse in Moscow, icons and the avant-garde.
In October 1911, Henri Matisse travelled to Russia to stay with his most important patron Sergei Shchukin. The wealthy Moscow businessman had commissioned two enormous canvases which now rank amongst the artist’s greatest works. This lecture relates what happened in Moscow and how Matisse fell in love with Russian icons, and how his riotous paintings revolutionised…
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