Previous Study Days

Lecturer: Douglas Skeggs
Booking Months:
Cost:  to be advised
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall

The study day follows the course of this hard, determined, often brutal dynasty who ruled Russia for over three hundred years, from Peter the Great, the founder of St Petersburg, through his eccentric daughter Elizabeth, to Catherine the Great, the most powerful of all the Empresses of Russia who had no real claim to the throne, and on to the tragic figure of Nicholas II, the last Tsar and one of the most poignant figures in history whose death in a cellar in Ekaterinburg in 1918 ended the reign of this turbulent and ill-fated family.

Lecture 1: “The Blaspheming Bear”: The life of Peter the Great
Lecture 2: “The New Byzantium”: Russia at the time of Catherine the Great
Lecture 3: “The Last Romanovs”: The life and death of Nicholas and Alexandra

Lecturer: Mary Alexander
Booking Months:
Cost:  to be advised
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall

Since the 19th century English high society had “wintered over” on the Cote d’Azur, but always left by April. In the early 1920’s, however, an intoxicating mix of artists, writers, musicians and international visitors, inspired by a mythological seascape of luminous colours, created a new summer season. Sun tans and sportswear soon became “de rigueur” in the chic new coastal resorts, villas and hotels. This liberating playground of ideas across the visual design arts was stimulated by impresarios Serge Diaghilev and Paul Poiret.

Traditional boundaries were torn down. Matisse, Picasso, Dufy, Cocteau, and Chanel merged the worlds of fashion, theatre and interiors. Cole Porter, Scott Fitzgerald, and the intriguing Gerald and Sara Murphy, introduced an American perspective and attracted an influential new set of discerning patrons and collectors. We will “time travel” to meet them on this study day.

Booking Months:
Cost:  £25 – Sold Out with Waiting List
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall, OX12 9LJ

Leonardo da Vinci was a painter and draughtsman of the High Renaissance, whose works were informed by scientific investigation. The day will cover his paintings, anatomical and scientific drawings, which make an incredible contribution to our early understanding of anatomy, aeronautics, cartography, warfare and engineering, to name but a few.

Leonardo was justifiably described by Kenneth Clarke as the most relentlessly curious man of all time.

Booking Months:
Cost:  To be advised
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall, OX12 9LJ

In the world of architectural and garden design, the names of Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll are inseparably linked. Lutyens owed his career to Jekyll, as she employed him when he was just starting out, introducing him to many of his early clients.
Both were inspired by the great changes stimulated by the Arts and Crafts movement and this source united them from the start. It is a story of kindliness, mutual support and artistic cross-fertilisation. Their collaborative works included Munstead Wood, Deanery Garden and Hestercombe near Taunton. They inhabited a golden age in late Victorian and Edwardian England, a world which in some respects ended for both of them with the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914.

Lecturer:  Tessa Boase

Booking Months:
Cost:  No charge
Location:  Online

A Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
As the most senior of upper servants, the housekeeper typically carried a family’s secrets with her to the grave. She ran the English country house, controlled its female servants and conserved its many treasures – and yet she has not been remembered history. Using old letters, secret diaries and neglected archives, Tessa has resurrected a series of fascinating stories from 19th and 20th century domestic service, at some of our most prominent households. The opening lecture sets this historic role in context by examining a rare bundle of application letters for the top job of housekeeper to Prime Minister Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, 1890. What, precisely, was he looking for?

Wrest Park, Bedfordshire: ‘The Country House Great War Hospital’
Once an indulgent weekend chateau, Wrest Park transformed itself into the War Office’s best country-house base hospital, patching up the bodies of some 2000 soldiers. But when housekeeper Hannah Mackenzie crossed swords with Matron Miss Martin, the resulting bitter blood feud undermined the smooth running of the great house – with explosive results.

Programme Times
First Lecture : 10.30 – 11.30
Break : 11.30 – 11.45
Second Lecture : 11.45 – 12.45

Lecturer: Lynne Gibson

Booking Months:
Cost:  No charge for Zoom event
Location:  ONLINE ZOOM – invite will be sent by email to members

Until the 1970s, an Art History student could well believe there were no women artists in the entire history of Western Art. Research over the past few decades has changed the subject of Art History and the Art we see in galleries and museums. This lecture will discover Old Mistresses and look at contemporary women artists from Artemesia Gentileschi to Tracey Emin.

Lecturer: Fiona Rose

Booking Months:
Cost:  To be advised
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall, OX12 9LJ

William Morris (1834-1896) was the single most influential designer of the nineteenth century. When he was dying, his physician said “He is dying of being William Morris, of having lived the life of ten men in the body of one”. This Study Day takes a look at the man behind the famous floral designs.

Lecturer: Timothy Walker

Booking: Online booking will be used – members will be notified when it is open.
Cost:  £35 – Coffee and lunch are included
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall, OX12 9LJ

The study day consists of three parts (three lectures) as follows:
1. Broadening the Palette – This covers with the creation of gardens from Medieval times to the end of the 19th century. It includes gardens from Europe, Asia, and America, as well as England.
2. Seeing the Light – The story now looks at the use of colour by humans in everyday life and gardening and art from 30,000 to the present day.
3. Planting the Picture – The final part picks up the story from part one at the start of the 20th century and examines the process of, and motivation for creating living works of fine art in the garden.

This study day will try to answer some overlapping questions.
• What is a garden?
• What influences garden design?
• Is garden design art?
• Do gardens and art both reflect the society in which they are rooted?
• What role does colour play in the design of gardens?
• In what ways are the principles of garden design different from those of fine art?
• Are there any parallels between the motivations for creating gardens and creating works of art?

Lecturer: Giles Ramsay

Booking Months:
Cost: 
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall, OX12 9LJ

In this Study Day Giles will look at the revolution in theatre that took place in the late C19th and its legacy on the European theatrical styles of the early C20th. He will examine the impact of the First World War and the Great Depression on the theatre and the extraordinary divide that emerged between the drawing-room dramas of Noel Coward and Terrence Rattigan in London’s West End and the work of Lillian Bayliss, south of the river, at The Old Vic.

Whilst Noel Coward and Terrence Rattigan had dominated the pre-war theatre scene by the 1950’s they had begun to fall out of favour with the British public. A revolution was taking place in the arts and new voices were beginning to be heard such as John Osborne and Harold Pinter. Giles will examine the stark contrast between pre- and post-war British theatre and how we, in the C21st, can now reassess which playwrights really stood the test of time.

Lecturer: Ian Swankie

Booking Months: September, October 2023
Cost:  £35
Location:  Letcombe Regis Village Hall, OX12 9LJ

This Study Day will be an armchair tour of the wonderful art collection at Tate.
It starts outside Tate Britain with an introduction to the founding of the collection and the architecture of the building, then we explore the works. Tate Britain houses art by British artists, and artists who have worked in Britain.
lt covers the period from the 1500’s to the present day.

Next we move along the river to Tate Modern, the cathedral of international modern art.
We look at the sleek new architecture and its engagement with the local environment, then we have a tour of the highlights of the collection.
From the twentieth and twenty first centuries the collection comes from all over the world. Some are easy to explain and some are quite challenging, but they all have a place.
Tate Modern is the most visited art museum in the world.