Throughout the year, we organise a number of talks in order to bring together members of our community and discuss a range of issues.
This year, we are excited to bring you, in partnership with the Gardens Trust, a series of online lectures, from the comfort of your own home.
Our Lectures take place on alternate Monday evenings between 6pm and 7pm. Members of the Gardens Trust, London Gardens Trust or another County Gardens Trust will be eligible for a discount.
Tickets for our individual lectures cost £4 for members and £6 for non-members. Alternatively you can buy tickets to the full series of 12 lectures – £40 for members and £60 for non members.
In addition to the live lectures, the events will be recorded and a link will be sent to ticket-holders the following day which will be available to view for one week.
Our next lecture is
Monday, 30 November 2020 6pm – 7pm
Pulhamite in London 1820-2020: How One Man’s Rocky Creation Became the Fashionable Garden Feature of the Victorian and Edwardian Eras
Valerie Christman – The Pulham Legacy and direct descendant of the Pulham family
James Pulham moved to London in 1824 and in 1827 started a business that would be passed from father to son for four generations and all called James. Spanning a period of approximately one hundred years, the four James and their brothers would become one of the most famous landscaping families of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
During their time the Pulhams created and constructed various gardens, grottoes, ferneries and terracotta work throughout London, from the roof gardens at Selfridges to the rear gardens at Buckingham Palace, from the colonnade at the Victoria and Albert museum to the rock features at Regents Park, London Zoo and the waterfall at Battersea Park to the Pulhamite rocks beside Duck Island Cottage in St James’s Park.
This talk will take you through some of their work in London, we will discover the mysterious Pulhamite recipe for the artificial rock that the Pulhams were renowned for. The talk will also cover how after one hundred years many of the gardens have fallen into a sad state of disrepair, and how if possible careful restoration can be carried out.
Monday 14 December 2020 6pm – 7pm
Wentworth Castle and Wentworth Woodhouse: Georgian rivals united through 21st-century restoration and public access – Dr Patrick Eyres
The family rivalry was both dynastic and political. Until the mid-1740s, the Wentworth Castle dynasty was superior in aristocratic rank and cultural display. It was once the Hanoverian monarchy was securely embedded, that the Whigs at Wentworth Woodhouse began to eclipse their Tory cousins in social status and estate embellishment. We are fortunate that the rivals are being united by the endeavours of charitable trusts to conserve as a public amenity this magnificent legacy of competitive country house building and landscape gardening.
For over a decade, the Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust restored the splendour of the mansion, estate buildings, gardens, park and monuments, and the future of Wentworth Castle Gardens is now secure in the care of the National Trust. At Wentworth Woodhouse, the Fitzwilliam Wentworth Amenity Trust has restored the Georgian fabric of the landscape monuments and the four serpentine lakes, while the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust is undertaking the Herculean task of re-roofing the gargantuan Palladian mansion.