For our next outing, we invite you to join us on an hour and a half long guided tour, with a top expert, of the Italian Renaissance Art in the collection of the National Gallery. (£39)

Following on from our inspirational trip back in April, where we fell in love with the local Umbrian and Tuscan genius artists, like Della Francesca and Fillipo Lippi, we are offering a chance to have an in-depth look at the techniques and composition of their artworld right on our doorstep.

We are promised a “journey to the golden age of Italian art and meet the artists who changed Western painting forever: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, and Piero della Francesca”.

Email Elaine: outingstheartssocietysevenoaks@gmail.com

click here to read the report 

You can read a report of out trip by clicking here.

On a day that suggested that the darling buds of May had come a month early, our latest arts society outing took place deep in the heart of the Kent countryside, at the delightful Jacobean gabled country manor that is Godinton House.

You can download a full report of our visit by clicking here

The Salomons family were Jewish, having arrived from Holland in the 18th century as part of a wave of Ashkenazi migration that settled in London. Our talk began with Sir David Salomons, born in 1797, at a time when Jews faced significant legal and social exclusion in Britain. It is therefore to his enduring credit that he established himself as a financier, politician, and property owner. These achievements were far from routine: time and again he was required to challenge legislation from outside the system to gain inclusion within.

Click here to read a review of our visit

On a very cold and frosty morning, the Sevenoaks Arts Society set off, firstly, to find out the secrets of St Bartholomew The Great, a 12th century church in Smithfield in the City of London and then on to The Museum of The Order of Saint John, in Clerkenwell.

You can view our trip by clicking here

We have been fortunate enough to obtain a slot to visit Chevening on 8th July 2025.  This is likely to be a popular outing as the house is usually the home of the Foreign Secretary and consequently difficult to access.  Chevening limits the trip to 25 people and as we expect there to be a lot of interest in the outing a ballot will be held if more than 25 people apply.  In the first instance if you are interested in attending please complete the application form and submit it to the e-mail address included in the Application Form.  Do not, at this stage, make payment.  You will be advised in due course when to make payment/whether you are successful in your application.

The event is only open to TASS members.

Chevening once formed part of the Otford estate of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and there has been a house here since at least 1199. The history of the present house is not well documented, but it is said to have been built for the 13th Lord Dacre who died in 1630. There is a tradition that the original design of this house was by Inigo Jones, and there is some architectural evidence to support this. The panelling in the dining room is said to be 17th century.
In 1715, the estate was bought by the 1st Earl Stanhope who was a successful diplomat and general in the War of the Spanish Succession. He improved the house considerably, with a magnificent circular staircase (Nicholas Dubois, c. 1721) and a tapestry chamber with Berlin-Beauvais tapestries of the highest quality. In the 18th century the house was heightened and refaced, and the gardens were laid out with a large artificial lake lined with trees.
The Earls Stanhope played a significant part in the political life of this country, mostly Conservatives apart from the radical 4th Earl who supported the French Revolution and was the father of Lady Hester Stanhope. The family were also active in the arts and sciences, with five Fellows of the Royal Society and the founders of the National Portrait Gallery and the National Maritime Museum. The peerage became extinct with the last Earl Stanhope, who died in 1967. He left his estate to the nation under the Chevening Estate Act of 1959, whereby it was to be used as a private residence by either a Cabinet Minister or a descendant of George VI, to be nominated by the Prime Minister. Prince Charles considered living there, but never did so, and since then it has generally been occupied by the Foreign Minister.
The tour will take 2 hours, with a lot of walking and stairs, and will finish with tea and cakes. Numbers are limited, and a ballot may be needed.

One of the first castles built by the Normans after the Conquest was at Arundel, overlooking the road crossing of the river and well placed to prevent invaders from sailing up the river.  After a rebellion it was captured by Henry I, who left it to his widow Adeliza of Louvain (together with Petworth). Her second husband was William d’Aubigny and it has been passed down by inheritance ever since, passing in the female line in 1243 to the Fitzalan family and in 1580 to the Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk and Earls of Arundel  The Fitzalan-Howard family have almost always remained Catholic:  in 1572 the 4th Duke was executed and the dukedom was abolished, and later his son Philip Howard Earl of Arundel died in the Tower and was subsequently canonised.

In 1380 the then Earl of Arundel founded a Collegiate Church as a chantry for his family, like the church at Cobham.  Both this and the Castle were severely damaged in the Civil War, but the dukedom was restored after this.  The church was divided by a grille into the nave, which became the Anglican parish church, and the chancel or Fitzalan Chapel which remained a Catholic chapel where Requiem Masses are said for the family, with magnificent memorials going back to the Middle Ages. This has a separate entrance from the Castle grounds. 

The damaged Castle was only a secondary residence of the family for some time, but from 1787 onwards the 11th Duke started to rebuild and restore it. More rebuilding went on for the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1846, and continued up to 1905.  The gardens are very fine.

In 1860 the 14th Duke died, leaving a son aged 12.  This 15th Duke was educated at the Oratory and on a Grand Tour with a learned tutor:  at that time Oxford and Cambridge only admitted Anglicans. On his return in 1874 he found that the income of his estates had accumulated, and decided to build a grand Catholic church, inspired by the great cathedrals of the Continent.  The architect was Joseph Hansom, who designed the Hansom cab. When the Diocese of Southwark was divided in 1965, this church became the Cathedral of Arundel and Brighton, and in 1972 the relics of St Philip Howard were moved here and the cathedral was dedicated to him. Every year a Carpet of Flowers is laid down in the nave for the Feast of Corpus Christi, and we shall see this.

The charge will be £58.50 per person to include travel by coach, a group guided tour of the castle and a tip for the driver.  It will be possible to pay separately for entrance to the gardens on the day.  Entrance to the Corpus Christi carpet of flowers is free and may be accessed via a side gate from the castle.  

Catering is not included.  The castle has a very good lunch menu, sample attached.  In addition, the Cathedral Centre will offer a light lunch during the Carpet of Flowers event, but suggest you visit after 1:30 pm as it will be very busy. 

Click here for a booking form

The outing will comprise coach travel to and from Petworth, a guided tour of the house with a focus on Turner, and limited spaces for a talk by the Garden Manager.   The coach will depart from the coach bay adjacent to the Leisure Centre, Sevenoaks at 9 am, returning at around.5:30 pm.  

The charge will be £27.50 per person for Members of the Arts Society who are members of the National Trust. The Charge for non-members of the National Trust will be £45 to cover the entrance fee. There is a supplement of £5 for non-Members of the Arts Society. 

Please CLICK HERE to download the application form.

The history of Petworth goes back to the 12th century, when the estate was given by Henry I’s widow to her brother who married a co-heiress of the Percy family, later Earls of Northumberland, and they built the first manor house and church on this site.  It has never been sold and has been passed on by inheritance to the present day. As they had extensive lands in the north, it was a secondary residence of the family, to which they were banished  by Queen Elizabeth I after the execution of the previous Earl. 
 In 1670 the last Earl died, leaving a 2-year-old heiress, Lady Elizabeth Percy.  At 16, having been twice widowed, she married the Duke of Somerset, known as the Proud Duke, and they rebuilt the house as a magnificent Baroque palace inspired by Versailles. Grinling Gibbons adorned the house with some of his finest carvings.
When the last Duke of Somerset died in 1750, there were two co-heirs, one of whom inherited Alnwick and the other, Charles Wyndham, inherited Petworth and became 1st Earl of Egremont.  The 2nd Earl employed Capability Brown to lay out the magnificent grounds.  The 3rd Earl was a great art collector and patron of Turner and Constable, both of whom visited the house frequently, and he built the North Gallery to house his collection.  This superb collection includes works by Van Dyck and Reynolds, with many Turners, as well as neo-classical sculptures.  He left the house to his illegitimate son, who became 1st Baron Leconfield, and whose descendants still live in the South Wing, while the part we shall see was given to the National Trust in 1947.

On All Souls’ Day, Saturday 2nd November 2024, we have a tour of two local churches led by Sir Paul Britton of the National Churches Trust. 

All Saint’s Langton Green was built by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1862-4. It has very fine stained glass windows by Burne-Jones, Morris and Ford Madox Brown, and a magnificent Jesse Tree window by C E Kempe.

The windows at St Mary the Virgin Speldhurst, which was rebuilt by J Oldrid Scott in 1870-1, are even more spectacular. They were made by Morris & Co, with designs by William Morris, Burne-Jones and Kempe.  ‘How inventive and versatile Burne-Jones was in his early maturity’ (Pevsner).

This will be a self-driven tour, and we hope to arrange lifts for those who need them.  Lunch will be at the George & Dragon in Speldhurst, one of the oldest inns in England.

Booking form

This walking tour will be led by David Woosnam of the Decimus Burton Society.  It will be held on Saturday afternoon for the benefit of members who go to work.

Decimus Burton is a somewhat neglected genius, the last of the great neo-Classical architects of the 19th Century.  His father James was an architect and property developer and they worked together on St Leonards-on-Sea.  Many of his greatest works are in and around London, including the screen at Hyde Park, the Athenaeum, several terraces and the Holme in Regent’s Park, and the two great greenhouses at Kew.  He had been to Tonbridge School and his works in Kent include St Mary’s Riverhead.  Perhaps his most spectacular and original achievement was the development of Tunbridge Wells, with villas, terraces and shops at the top of Mount Pleasant to rival the Pantiles and other delights at the bottom of the hill.  In these he enlivened his classical ideas with charming touches of the Picturesque.

The tour will start at the Trinity Theatre (formerly Burton’s Holy Trinity Church) at 2 pm, and finish about 90 minutes later a five-minute walk away.  As it is all at the top of the town, the walking is easy and level.  Lunch and tea are available nearby, but not included. The charge of £7.50 per head, with £5 extra for non-members, will go to the Decimus Burton Society.

Belmont House was built by Samuel Wyatt for the Manager of the Powder Mills at Faversham from 1769 onwards.  It was being enlarged and remodelled by Col. Montresor of the Royal Engineers until he was accused of embezzlement:  the estate was auctioned and bought by the 1st Baron Harris in 1801.

Lord Harris was the son of the Curate of Brasted and had had a very successful military career in America and India: he commanded the capture of Seringapatam in 1799, well known from Tippoo’s Tiger and The Moonstone.  He retired with £100,000 prize money. There is a fine collection of Indian arms and artworks, including Tippoo Sahib’s hat. 

The house is an excellent and  unspoiled example of late Georgian architecture and décor.  There are beautiful gardens with an Orangery, a Pinetum, a shell grotto and a restored kitchen garden.   The estate is still owned by the Harris family.  The 5th Baron was a collector of antique clocks and founded the Antiquarian Horological Society in 1953:  the clocks will be included in the tour.

More about Belmont House

Application Form

We leave from the Coach Pick-Up stop near the Sevenoaks Leisure Centre at 9 am.  Cars can be left in the Town Car Park (£5.50 for the day). We should arrive by 10.30.  Coffee, tea and biscuits on arrival (included).  The tour of the house will take about 1 hour 15 minutes.  A light lunch will be served in the Orangery (included).  There should be plenty of time to see the gardens; the Head Gardener will be available to answer questions.  If we leave about 3 pm we should be back about 4 pm.

We have great pleasure in inviting you to visit two beautiful and interesting sites close to one another (and to Greenwich Station). The Fan Museum is the first of its kind in the world, and is in a pair of lovely houses dating from 1712 in Crooms Hill. It holds a remarkable collection of hand-held fans, going back to the 12th century and continuing up to the 20th. The museum is closed to the general public on Monday, so we shall have it to ourselves.

We meet for coffee in the Orangery at 10.30 and are then given a guided tour at 11, with explanation of a subject which will probably be unfamiliar to most of us. We return to the Orangery for a light lunch at 12.30. After lunch, it is a 4-minute walk to St Alfege’s church. In 1012 the Vikings sacked Canterbury and captured the Archbishop, Alfege. They took him to Greenwich hoping to get a large ransom, but he refused to be ransomed, so they killed him. There was a mediaeval church on this site, but this collapsed in the early 18th century and the present church was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor under the Fifty New Churches scheme. We shall be given a private conducted tour at 2.15, which will include the crypt and galleries: many famous people including Thomas Tallis are buried here. The tour ends about 3.30.

Application form.

You can get there by car or rail. If you drive, the nearest car park is in Burney Street, SE10 8EX. You can pay for this by the Pay By Phone App: it costs £1.40 every 12 minutes. It would be cheaper to go by rail, taking the 9.28 train to London Bridge followed by the train to Greenwich. It is 7 minutes’ walk from the station to the museum.

A Private Guided Tour of Horace Walpole’s magnificent Gothic house, coffee on arrival and lunch included. Afterwards you can walk down the river to Marble Hill House, built for George II’s mistress the Countess of Suffolk. £38 for Members, £43 for Guests. Transport not included. Meet at Strawberry Hill House at 11.15 am.

We should meet at the House about 11.15 for coffee or tea (included) having reached it independently by train or car:

By Train: There are two trains per hour from Waterloo Station to Strawberry Hill Station. We suggest the 9.27 from Sevenoaks to Waterloo East, then the 10.30 from Waterloo to Strawberry Hill (11.07). Railcards and Off-peak day returns will be valid. It is a six-minute walk from the station to the House.

By Car: Free car park at the house: Postcode TW1 4ST. We suggest using a live satnav and allowing plenty of time because of congestion on the M25 and A244.

The House is closed to the general public on that day, and we shall be given a guided tour on our own. A lunch of soup and sandwiches will be provided at 1.15 (included). After Lunch, you may like to explore the lovely gardens, or else walk along the Thames past Orléans House to Marble Hill House, a fine Palladian mansion built for the Countess of Suffolk, who was George II’s mistress and a friend of Horace Walpole. This walk takes 35 minutes. There are also buses available if that is too much for you. Entry to Marble Hill House is free. From there it is a short walk to St Margaret’s Station which will take you back to Waterloo. A day return to Strawberry Hill station will be valid.

Application form

Strawberry Hill was built by Horace Walpole, the son of Sir Robert Walpole who had amassed a great fortune as the first Prime Minister in George I’s reign.  Horace’s interests were historical, literary and artistic:  he wrote one of the first Gothic novels, The Castle of Otranto, and built Strawberry Hill House, which is said to be the first building to revive the Gothic style in the 18th century. Most of the decorations were designed by Walpole himself between 1749 and 1776.  The building was intended to house his collections of art and antiquities.  It used to be very difficult to see the house, but since extensive restoration, completed in 2010, it has been open to the public, and many of Walpole’s treasures have been brought back and installed there.  The gardens, which were also designed by Walpole in the new informal English style, have also been restored and the shell-shaped bench recreated.

The Church was rebuilt by the de Cobham family in the 13th century and further embellished by Henry Yevele for Sir John de Cobham in 1362. He founded a College of Priests to serve the church and to sing Masses for the family. The collection of memorial brasses, all from the family, is considered the finest in Kent. In 1561 the 9th Lord Cobham, who was a keen Reformer, replaced the Altar with a very fine monument to himself, and rearranged or destroyed many of the furnishings. Some of the remains of these were uncovered in the 19th Century restoration. We were shown round the many unusual and beautiful features of the Church by Jonathan Fenner.  We then were shown round the Priests’ College, which was converted into almshouses in 1598, by one of the Residents.

After lunch in the Leather Bottle, which appears in The Pickwick Papers, and possesses a collection of Dickensian memorabilia, we proceeded to Cobham Hall.   This was rebuilt about 1580 by the 10th Lord Cobham, as a ‘Prodigy House’, with two magnificent Elizabethan wings.  He unwisely backed Arabella Stuart rather than James VI and his estates were attainted and granted to the Dukes of Lennox and Richmond.  The famous portrait by Van Dyck of  Lords John and Bernard Stuart originally hung here.  The 6th Duke rebuilt the central block after the Restoration of Charles II and there was further rebuilding in the 18th and 19th Centuries. It is now a girls’ boarding school and so only open to the public on certain days.  We completed our tour with a cream tea in the magnificent Gilt Hall, with its Snetzler organ.

photo by Michael Jones

Dale Thomas, who is a Member of the Society and a long-standing Guide at the Victoria & Albert Museum, very kindly offered to show a group of our Members around the Museum. We accordingly met her under the Cihuly glass sculpture, which is itself of remarkable interest and beauty.  She took us to the Cast Court and showed many of the fine casts there, which have been restored in recent years.  She explained that in the 19th Century it was intended to allow British artists and craftsmen to see the great works of European art without the expense of foreign travel, and told us something of the extraordinary skills required to make these massive and intricate casts without damaging the originals.  Some of them, such as the monuments of the Knights from the Temple Church in London, have survived as casts when the originals were severely damaged by bombing.  She took us on further to see some of the great treasures of the V&A such as the Ardabil Carpet.

After lunch, we visited the Donatello exhibition independently.

Visit to newly refurbished Leighton House and Sambourne House, Holland Park, London. The plan is that you should travel there independently, which is actually quite easy. 

Leighton House has been extensively restored and you will be able to see more than before.  There is a fine collection of paintings and drawings by Lord Leighton and his contemporaries.  The House itself is most interesting and has a magnificent collection of Islamic artefacts including the famous Arab Hall, with Iznik tiles and lattice-work from Damascus.

Sambourne House (18 Stafford Terrace) was the home of the cartoonist, illustrator and photographer Linley Sambourne.  On his death the house was kept intact by his son who died in 1946, and then inherited by his niece Lady Rosse.  She was so impressed by the beauty and perfect preservation of the Victorian interiors that she was inspired to found the Victorian Society.

The plan is that we should assemble at Leighton House about 11 am. The easiest way to get there is to go by train to Charing Cross and then get the No 9 Bus, alighting at the Design Museum.  There are of course other ways of getting there, such as taking the Circle Line from Embankment to High Street Kensington:  this is a bit faster but involves longer walks at each end.  The 9.24 or 9.29 from Sevenoaks should get you there in good time. Coffee and pastries will be served in the Learning Centre and the tour of Leighton House starts at 11.30, finishing about 1 pm. We then have a light lunch in the Learning Centre and walk to Sambourne House, which takes 8 minutes, aiming to arrive by 2.15.  

As the rooms are not very large, the tour will probably be given in two groups, with a short film before the start of one tour and after the end of the other.  We shall probably finish about 3.45.

Visit to Cézanne exhibition at Tate Modern.  Frank Woodgate will give an introductory lecture, and coffee and lunch are included.

Further details

Anniversary Lunch at St Julians to celebrate our 50 year anniversary.

We are delighted to invite you to a very special lunch which is being held to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of The Arts Society Sevenoaks, founded as Sevenoaks NADFAS fifty years ago.

The lunch will be held at the attractive location of St Julian’s Club, St Julian’s Road, Sevenoaks TN15 0RX at 12.30 am on Wednesday 20 July. It will be a two-course meal with welcome fizz and a glass of  wine or soft drink included. Further drinks can be bought individually if wished. We are delighted to be able to welcome as our speaker the CEO of The Arts Society, Florian Schweizer, to help us celebrate our very special anniversary.

Tickets to the lunch will be £50 per person. To apply for tickets, please fill in the form below and return as directed.  Places will be limited so we advise booking early. The last date for applications will be 2 July. Tickets will be sent nearer the time.

We do hope that many of you will wish to join us at our Golden Jubilee Lunch.

Further information from:

Jill Webster jilwebster@hotmail.com or 

Linda dell-AvvocatoLdellavvocato@hotmail.co.uk

We have been invited by our sister Arts Society – Knole to join them on a visit to Windsor Great Park.

Details and application form 

Guided tour of the Cathedral and Restoration House. We shall visit Restoration House and its garden in the morning, guided by the owner and volunteers, and Rochester Cathedral in the afternoon, guided by Jonathan Fenner.  This will be a self-reliant trip.  You can either drive to Rochester and park in the Station Car Park or take the train from Sevenoaks, Otford or Swanley.  The station is a short walk to the places of interest.  There is a great range of restaurants in Rochester High Street, and you could even bring a picnic if you prefer.

Programme                             application form

10.30 am Meet at café at Restoration House, 17-19 Crow Lane, Rochester ME1 1RF – 7 minutes’ walk from Station, several car-parks around station and Corporation Street.

11 am  Private tour of garden followed by free-flow visit of House. This is a most unusual survival of a town mansion, where Charles II was received in 1660. It has been beautifully restored: see https://restorationhouse.co.uk/

12.30 pm Time free for Lunch.  There are restaurants for every taste in Rochester High Street, lunch is available in the Cathedral Crypt, and if the weather permits you could have a picnic.

1.45 pm. Meet Jonathan Fenner outside the West Front of the Cathedral for a guided tour. Rochester Cathedral is one of the oldest in the country, founded in 604 by a follower of St Augustine.  It is an innovative and fine Romanesque building.

https://www.rochestercathedral.org/  Tour completed by 3.30.

(3.30 pm Organ Practice followed by Choral Evensong at 5.30. Tea is available in the Crypt up to 4 pm.)

Enquiries to: outings.sevenoaksartssoc@gmail.com

Exhibition of works by Turner Prize-winning artist and cultural activist, Lubaina Himid.

view a report of our visit and pictures of our visit

Programme:

11.00 Coffee followed by Introductory lecture with Frank Woodgate
12.30 Buffet Lunch
1.30 and 2.30 Exhibition Entry
Tickets: £44 AS member, £37 Art Fund member, £29 Tate member..

'Treasures of the Borghese Gallery’: A Virtual Guided Tour with Stuart Harvey

24th November, 2.30 pm, on Zoom

We enjoyed a very successful visit to Firle Place and Charleston Farmhouse on 30th September. 

Review of the visit to Firle Place       Review of the visit to Charleston

View photographs of our visit

Guided visit to garden and free-flow visit to house. “Penshurst Place is one of England’s greatest family owned stately homes, with a history of some six and a half centuries. A magnificent medieval Baron’s hall built in 1341 with an impressive 60’ high chestnut beamed roof, is complemented by a marvellous mix of paintings, tapestries and furniture from 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, including the helm carried in the state funeral procession of Elizabethan courtier and poet Sir Philip Sydney. The gardens first laid out in the 14th century and developed over successive years by the Sidney family, were restored and replanted by the first Viscount De L’Isle retaining their historic splendour as rooms of seasonal colour framed in yew.” 

Jonathan Fenner returns to guide us on a five mile circular walk around Cobham.  He will consider the relationship between the landscape and vernacular architecture including the landmark attractions of Cobham Hall, Owletts, St Mary Magdalene Church, Cobham Wood with the Darnley Mausoleum and last but not least The Leather Bottle Bar.  A map will be provided so you can follow the route on foot in your own time.

The virtual walk will begin at 2 pm. There will be a charge of £10 per household.

The tour will be delivered via Zoom, with our usual welcome followed by questions and answers.  An email with application and payment details will be sent out 10 days before the event.

The East End is one of London’s most fascinating and dynamic districts.  It is essentially a story of immigration, wave after wave of people coming to London to seek refuge and a better life.  This Virtual Tour tells their story.  Using powerful images, video and google street view, the journey embraces 250 years of history.  Starting in the 1680’s with the arrival of French Huguenots and finishing in the late 1930’s with the arrival at Liverpool Street station of some 10,000 mainly Jewish children secretly evacuated from Nazi occupied Europe before the outbreak of WW2.

Pepe Martinez born and bred in the East End will lead the way.  He is an award winning London Blue Badge Guide and leads the programme for training virtual tour guides.

The virtual tour will begin at 11 am. There will be a charge of £10 per household.

The tour will be delivered via Zoom, with our usual welcome followed by questions and answers.  An email with application and payment details will be sent out 10 days before the event.

Jonathan Fenner a local blue badge guide will navigate the Medway.  Beginning at Turner’s Hill the tour will meander downstream to Garrison Point near Sheerness. On the way Jonathan will visit historic towns, villages, churches, manor houses, bridges and even the Readers Factory where leather cricket balls were produced between 1808-2012.

The vritual tour will begin at 2 pm. There will be a charge of £10 per household.  Flyer and application form

The tour will be delivered via Zoom, with our usual welcome followed by questions and answers.  An email with application and payment details will be sent out 10 days before the event.

Unfortunately, because of the Coronavirus situation, it was necessary to postpone this tour.

Click for details of future outings

..

A most interesting visit was also made in June to Hoglands, the restored house, studios and renowned Sculpture Gardens at Perry Green, Hertfordshire, where Henry Moore lived at worked from 1940 to 1986. Members enjoyed a guided tour of the drawings, carvings, tapestries and monumental sculptures of this prolific artist.

Members celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Arts Society Sevenoaks (formerly NADFAS) at a Jazz Tea at Riverhill Himalayan Gardens in June, where a happy afternoon was spent exploring the beautiful gardens and enjoying a delicious tea with delightful musical accompaniment.

We visited the picture gallery built in 1904 for the Victorian painter George Frederic Watts. The purpose-built top-lit gallery was designed by Christopher Turnor, a young local architect, who was inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement. We saw a range of work by Watts, including early works of social realism, epic depictions of classical, historical and religious subjects, and later works imbued with mystery and symbolism. One of the best-known paintings on display, Hope, shows an female allegorical figure sitting on a globe, blindfolded, clutching a wooden lyre with broken strings.

There were also portraits, which provided Watts with an income. Some of us were much taken with two landscapes in oil painted during a study visit in Italy. A room devoted to his sculpture is dominated by the original gesso grosso models for the statue of his friend Tennyson and the huge equestrian sculpture, Physical Energy.

A short walk from the Gallery took us to the Watts Cemetery Chapel, an Arts and Crafts masterpiece designed by Watts’ young wife, Mary, and completed in 1898. The exterior is richly decorated with terracotta tiles modeled from local clay, with the help of villagers whom Mary had trained. Here we gaze up at the elaborate frieze encircling the Chapel, and try to make out the shapes of pelicans amongst the pattern of trees and small animals creeping through their roots.

Inside, Mary Watts and her assistants decorated the Chapel with hand-painted gesso, forming an elaborate symbolic scheme, the dome of heaven above, cherubin and seraphin below, and angels and winged messengers of light and dark amongst swirling tendrils that float around the circular walls.

We also visit nearby Limnerslease, the house built for George and Mary Watts, commissioned from the Arts & Crafts architect Ernest George. Now owned by a trust, the house is the subject of a restoration project. Amongst the treasures of the house are the fine ceilings decorated by Mary in gesso, and two capacious studios.

Fascinating exhibits, helpful guides and good company made for a very enjoyable day. Thanks to Maggie Llanwarne for making all the arrangements.

Guided by a representative of the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust 54 members of the Society explored four churches set in the flat marshlands. Favoured by a sunny spring day the churches presented striking profiles against the blue sky.

Escaping the excesses of Victorian restoration and now carefully conserved, the churches, though stressed by settlement and storms, retain remarkable architectural features and furnishings from earlier periods.

At New Romney, we stepped down below pavement level to enter St Nicholas church below the huge tower. Here we see the massive Caen stone piers of the 12th century Norman nave, which give way at the east end to more slender Gothic arcades in Kentish ragstone, of a later period. The original east end is thought to have been badly damaged by the Great Storm of 1287, which silted up the harbour. Nearby, we could see the original shoreline where the land dips down to a lower level, but the church is now more than half a mile from the sea.

St Clements, Old Romney, is a small church, dating from the mid-twelfth century. Some remarkable features have been preserved: the entrance to the medieval rood loft, complete with a rare survival of the wooden door frame, the Bethersden marble altar (rediscovered buried near the porch after its removal in the Reformation and now reinstated), and the fourteenth century font, supported on four legs in the form of atlantes figures. There is also an unusually complete set of post-Reformation fittings. Structural irregularities visible inside the church explained the complicated arrangement of buttresses that were visible externally.

After lunch at the local pub, we visited the the isolated church of St Thomas Becket at Fairfield, approached by a causeway alongside deep ditches and sheep with newly born lambs.  Now the iconic marshland church, it was rebuilt in the early 20th century utilising much of the original 15th century timber frame and the 18th century bricks. Inside, the low timber roof and huge cross-beams make a striking feature. The elegant Georgian box pews and triple-decked pulpit make a particularly attractive interior.

We began out visit to St Augustine, Brookland in the bell tower, a separate timber-framed structure beside the church.  Dating from the early 15th century the tower incorporated four massive corner posts of yew believed to have supported an earlier, 13th century structure. Inside, we sat amidst an elaborate structure of struts and beams.

The church nave, constructed in the 12th century, leans outward, and the walls are tied together by timber beams that straddle the nave, another case of instability of the marshland ground.

We ended our visit to Brookland gathered around its greatest treasure: the late 12th century lead font, impressively decorated with Signs of the Zodiac and the Labours of the Months.

It was with gratitude to Brenzett & District WI, before boarding our coach, that we completed our tour with tea and cakes in a nicely warmed room. We were pleased also to express our appreciation of our guide and the work of the Trust in the form of a donation to the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust. It had been a lovely day and a delightful tour. Thanks also to Maggie for brilliant organization.

Sevenoaks DFAS recently visited Belmont House, a beautiful Georgian house nestling in 3500 acres of countryside. Due to the foresight of the owners, Lord and Lady Harris, it is maintained by a family trust to ensure that the contents remain in the house. Various rooms are open to the public including the dining room laid out with wonderful silver, glass and tableware. Discoveries are still being found in attics and cupboards including a series of paintings by Michel-Jean Cazabon, a Trinidadian painter.

The gardens, including the kitchen garden, are beautifully kept. The house also contains an important collection of clocks, which were bought by the 5th Baron Harris. In the afternoon, members had a guided tour of Faversham with its impressive church and a mix of 16th to 18th century houses.

Members recently visited Greys Court, a country house mainly of the tudor period set in the Chiltern Hills near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. After a welcoming coffee in the converted ‘gothick’ dairy a guide introduced us to the fascinating history of the house which was built on the site of a medieval castle, fragments of which remain standing. We were able to wander freely inside the house which was remodelled in the 18th century with decorative plasterwork and a bow window extension at one side. The house was rescued in the 1930s by the Brunner family, founders of one of the companies that became ICI. They gifted the estate to the National Trust in 1969. One of delights of the house is that the furnishings remain as the family left them, including an attractive collection of porcelain, fine early English furniture and several interesting pictures by Frank Bragwyn.

We were much taken with the garden, which is divided into a series of ‘rooms’ with different designs and plantings. At the time of our visit the garden was full of spring flowers. The 14th century tower overlooks all parts of the garden. An unusually attractive feature is the vegetable garden which is laid out in a decorative design, making patterns with the colours and shapes of the various crops.

After lunch we drove to Henley where we boarded a boat for a river cruise. With improving weather we made a slow passage along the stretch of river known for the famous Regatta. Views of pastures, trees and hills interspersed with river-side chalets and grand houses brought the day to a relaxing close.
All our thanks to David Harman for organising the event.

After the customary refreshments on arrival we assembled in the barn for an introductory talk about William Morris and Kelmscott, his country home from 1871 until his death in 1896. He leased the house jointly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Dating from about 1570 with a taller block added in the 17th century, the house had been occupied by the same farming family for generations. Its traditional construction, with weathered cotswold stone, tall gables and mullioned windows, is immediately appealing, and we were charmed by its lovely, peaceful setting.

We were able to walk through the house freely, and the well informed volunteer guides in each room seemed very ready to engage with a group with an evident interest in the decorative arts. The contents of the house are a testimony to Morris’s tastes and interests, including many items collected by Morris as well as his own work and those of his his family and Arts and Crafts Associates: furniture, pictures, textiles, carpets, ceramics and metalwork.

The rooms of the original house have more of the atmosphere of a farmhouse, with low ceilings and exposed wood boards lining the walls. The Old Hall contains some of the furniture left by the Turner family when they let the house. The rooms in the 17th century part of the house are noticeably taller, and the painted panelling is of a classical design.

Amongst the contents of particular interest were the embroidered hangings, many of them designed by Jane Morris and their daughter May, Morris’s library and his collection of blue and white ceramics, and Rossetti’s famous oil painting of Jane Morris, The Blue Silk Dress.

Some of us walked into the village where there are cottages and the memorial hall designed by Arts and Crafts architect, Ernest Gimson. Another cottage features a remarkable stone carving of Morris designed by George Jack.

In the churchyard at the far end of the village is to be found the gravestone of William Morris, designed by friend and architect Philip Webb.

We also visited Great Coxwell Barn, a huge stone structure with elaborate carpentry supporting the roof. The barn is believed to have been built at the beginning of the 14th century on land under the control of Beaulieu Abbey and is a testimony to the wealth of  the Cistercians in this period.

The more technically-minded tried to understand the design of the timber structure, but most of us stood in wonder at how something so functional could also be beautiful. Not surprising then that the Coxwell Barn was greatly admired by William Morris.