Annual General Meeting (with Buffet Lunch option)
Monday 13th May 2024, 12:30pm, Temple Newsam - £22.50
10.30 am - Doors open, tea and coffee in the Great Hall
11.00-12.00 - AGM in the Picture Gallery
12.30-2.00pm - Buffet lunch in the Dining Room
2.00 pm - Annual Lecture: David Jones, ‘It’s a small country! Chippendale’s Scottish Subscribers’
3.00 pm - Close
Our speaker David Jones is a longstanding member of the Chippendale Society and was formerly a lecturer in Furniture History at the University of St Andrews. His lecture investigates the identities of the Scottish subscribers to the Director and the often surprising connections between them.
The AGM meeting is open to members only but the lecture is open to all. Admission to both is free.
The cost of the buffet lunch is £22.50, including tea and coffee.
Booking closes for this event on 3rd May 2024.
Study Day at Bolsover Castle and Welbeck Abbey
Thursday 16 May 2024 - £80/£70
We start our day with tea/coffee and biscuits followed by a guided tour of Bolsover Castle, a Stuart mansion near Worksop, designed by John Smythson for Sir Charles Cavendish (d. 1617).
In the afternoon, we visit Welbeck Abbey, only 20 minutes away. Welbeck Abbey was built as a monastery of the Premonstratensian order and in the eighteenth century became the country residence of the Dukes of Portland. We will be also be able to visit the Harley Gallery where many of the works of art collected over 400 years by the Dukes of Portland and their families are displayed .
Booking for this event has now closed.
Study Day to Sutton Park and Shandy Hall
Thursday 13th June 2024, 10:15am - £36
In the morning, we meet at Sutton Park, the home of the Sheffield family, formerly of Normanby Park, Lincolnshire, since 1963. Sutton Park is a neat Georgian house with a 5-bay facade, built in the 1730s for Richard Harland and altered in 1750 by Thomas Atkinson.
In the afternoon we travel 20 minutes north to Coxwold for a private tour of Shandy Hall. This small brick-faced house is a complete contrast to our morning visit. Laurence Sterne, formerly vicar of Sutton on the Forest but better known as the author of Tristram Shandy, lived here towards the end of his life. Parts of the Hall date back to the 15th century and it includes 17th-century panelling and a refaced 18th-century garden front.
Please note that there is no coach for this Study Day. We meet at Sutton Park at 10.15am (Sutton-on-the-Forest, York, YO61 1DP) and at Shandy Hall at 2pm (Coxwold, York, YO614AD). Although refreshments are not included, there is a cafe near Sutton Park and in Coxwold the well-known pub The Fauconberg Arms serves lunches to suit all appetites. The cost for this Study Day is £36, to include entrance fees and two private tours.
Booking closes for this event on 13th May 2024.
Study Day to Haddon Hall and Renishaw Hall
Thursday 25th July 2024 - £95/£88
In the morning, we go by coach to Haddon Hall, near Bakewell in Derbyshire. Haddon has been described as ‘the most perfect house to survive from the Middle Ages’.
In the afternoon we travel to Renishaw Hall, near Chesterfield, the former home of the Sitwell family. The Hall was built in 1625 as a conventional Jacobean house and was Gothicised at the turn of the 19th century.
The cost for this day, including coach travel, all admission fees, two private guided tours and an afternoon cream tea, is £95. The cost without the coach is £88.
Booking closes for this event on 30th May 2024.
Study tour to the Cotswolds
9th-12th September 2024 - £625/£725
We are delighted to offer this three-night, four-day study tour of the Cotswolds based at the four-star De Vere Cotswold Water Park Hotel near Cirencester. Booking is on a dinner, bed and breakfast basis and includes coach travel with Hargreaves coaches. The exciting part of this study tour is that, unusually, all the houses visited are privately owned.
On our first day, Monday, 9th September, we travel from Yorkshire to our railway pick-up point at Moreton-in-Marsh and then drive through the Cotswolds to Rodmarton Manor near Cirencester. This Arts and Crafts house was designed by Ernest Barnsley for Claude and Margaret Biddulph and completed in 1929. It is still owned by the Biddulph family.
On Tuesday, 10th September, we travel a short distance to the 16th-century Chavenage House near Tetbury. Built 1564-1576 for Edward Stephens, it remained in the Stephens family into the 19th century when it was bought by the Lowsley-Williams family. Our guided tour will be followed by lunch and a short visit to the gardens. After lunch, we travel north to visit Stanway House, a complete contrast to Chavenage and Rodmarton Manor. Stanway is a magical Jacobean house built in the 16th century with an earlier 14th-century tithe barn. It is home to the Earl of Wemyss and it is furnished with wonderful fine and decorative arts including two ‘Chinese’ day beds attributed to Thomas Chippendale. Here we have a private tour of the house followed by a self-guided tour of the gardens.
On Wednesday, 11th September we travel south to Corsham Court near Chippenham, the home of Lord Methuen. The house was built in 1582, enlarged and adapted in the 18th century and remodelled again in the 19th. In the afternoon we travel ten minutes to Bowood House where we will see the collections of the Marquesses of Lansdowne. We will enjoy a guided tour of the Robert Adam-designed Orangery, the Tapestry gallery and a purpose-made gallery created from the stables and grooms’ quarters which houses a wonderful collection of English watercolours.
On Thursday, 12th September, we travel north of Cirencester to Sudeley Castle. This important medieval and Tudor castle was used as a base by Prince Rupert, Charles I’s nephew and Royalist cavalry commander in the Civil War. However, the current house, with the ruins of the castle nearby, is the work of Worcester architect Harvey Eginton for the Dent brothers, Worcestershire glove makers, who bought the estate in 1837. We will enjoy a brief talk about the castle and family on arrival followed by an independent tour of the house and gardens, and we will end with a light lunch. After lunch, we move to Sezincote. The house is an exotic two-story bungalow with minarets and a copper dome, designed in 1805 by Samuel Pepys Cockerell in the neo-Moghul style. Here we have a private tour of the house and an independent tour of the Repton gardens. From Sezincote we will be able to stop at Moreton-in-Marsh railway station before making our way back to Ilkley via Leeds.
The cost for the four days, including coach travel, all admission fees and guided tours, three lunches and dinner bed and breakfast at the four-star De Vere Cotswold Water Park Hotel is £625 per person sharing a double/twin room and £725 (including single supplement) for a single room. A deposit of £150 is required by 21st May 2024 and the balance of £475 for a person sharing a double/twin room and £575 for a single room will be payable by the 30th June 2024.
Booking for this event closes on 21st May 2024.