It was Hallamshire’s turn to organise the annual lunch in 2019 but a break with tradition was forced by the sudden and unexpected closure of Hassop Hall. Fortunately East Lodge at Rowsley was able to accommodate us at short notice, though sadly we had to limit numbers to 70 and a handful of people were disappointed not to get tickets. On the wettest day of the year we were well looked after with canapes and aperitifs in the conservatory before an excellent meal in the dining room. After lunch Emma Paragreen, from Sheffield Assay Office, gave an interesting and entertaining talk on the history of Sheffield Plate. She brought examples from the Assay Office collection to illustrate it and we were able to examine them more closely afterwards. Unfortunately there is to be no Four Societies Lunch in 2020 but hopefully we shall meet again in 2021 when the event will be hosted by Sheffield Arts Society. Helen Lloyd

Julie is the daughter of our member, Andrew Flower.  She entertained us with our after lunch talk entitled “Never Look at an Ugly Thing Twice” - The Art and Architecture of CFA Voysey. She is Chair of the CFA Voysey Society, founded to celebrate his achievements over a long life (1857 -1941). Julie gave a fascinating, well-illustrated talk covering his many talents including that of being an architect, designer and a key figure in the Arts and Crafts movement. He admired Pugin and his principles, one of which was: “There should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety.” The houses Voysey built were quirky, pretty with whitewashed walls and big chimneys and sloping buttresses often with long runs of horizontal windows giving them a distinctive appearance. He was clever in his use of space and proportions and, above all, top quality craftsmanship. Julie illustrated these with some excellent photographs.He was also a designer of furniture, metalwork, and textiles which were all made to a high standard, often with characteristic designs. His principles seemed to be that simplicity was key, with no unnecessary embellishments, and excellent craftsmanship.

Peter Medhurst came to Tapton Masonic Hall on October 4th 2018 for his Study Day on the music of JS Bach.  We had 39 attendees with quite different levels of musical knowledge. Peter managed to keep us all engaged whatever our level.

He covered a lot of ground, including looking at composers who had influenced JS Bach eg other Baroque composers such as Handel, Scarlatti and Vivaldi among others and he explored some of Bach’s complex musical language but simplifying it so that we could understand! The Baroque era was deemed to close when he died in 1750, such was his impact.

He spoke about the St Matthew Passion and we heard some music from Anna Magdalena’s notebook as well as church and secular cantatas. We sang a canon, passably I think, under his guidance. Peter interspersed playing the piano or singing himself, with visual illustrations and recordings of various pieces by Bach so that there was variety and the pace was perfect.

Tapton looked after us very well and we had a convivial lunch during the day.

I received very many positive comments after about the day in general and below are one or two excerpts:

“...We think Peter did a super job of pitching at a mixed ability audience. We are at the less musical end of the spectrum, but we could follow it all and didn’t feel left behind, while it was clear that there was meaty technical stuff there for the more knowledgeable, too...”

“Thank you so much for a wonderful day out! I thought Peter Medhurst’s exposition of Bach was superb: so thorough on many aspects of his life and work. I’ve been saying in the last couple of decades that my favourite composers of all time are Bach, Handel and Purcell so I was in a state of delight today. .....”

Emma was able come and give us a fascinating talk illustrated by three objects for which she had obtained special permission to bring along - one being an umbrella by James Dixon & Sons with a gold handle and an interesting sea anemone in silver, which was rather large and sculpture-like and in which ALL the pieces of silver and all the solder had to be individually tested! The third was a candlestick. She used these to illustrate very different objects in the collection.

The four Arts Societies of Hallamshire, Sheffield, Cavendish and Dove Valley met as usual in the first week of November for a shared lunch at Hassop Hall. As expected the food was excellent but the highlight of the event was unquestionably the after dinner speech, or should I say entertainment, by Lars Tharp. He is known to most of us through his TV appearances as a ceramics expert on the Antiques Road Show.

Caravaggio lived from 1571-1610 and influenced Baroque painting hugely. He painted very realistic observations of the human form. He had a very colourful life, was considered a womaniser and was prone to violent outbursts. The talk was colourful and Andrew became so engrossed in his topic, of which he was clearly a master, that he ran well over time.