5 Days departing 29th July 2024. For full details see programme here

Day 1
We board our private executive coach and depart from our designated pick
up points. En route to Cardiff we visit Castell Coch meaning Red Castle in
Welsh. This perfect fairytale castle may have an authentic medieval look to
the exterior but the interior is pure Victorian fantasy. We continue to the
centrally located 4* Clayton Hotel in Cardiff for a four night stay on a half
board basis.
Day 2
A guided tour of Cardiff Castle this morning explores a history spanning
nearly 2,000 years and introduces us to the lavish interiors created by William
Burges for the 3rd Marquess of Bute. We continue with our Blue Badge guide
to the National Museum and Art Gallery of Wales this afternoon. Our guided
introductory tour takes us through a wonderful collection from Wales and
across the world, including one of the best collections of Impressionist works
outside Paris.
Day 3
Our Blue Badge guide meets us at our hotel this morning and accompanies
us throughout the day. We firstly visit St Cadoc’s Church at Llancarfan, dating
from the 13th Century. The church is one of several churches in Wales
dedicated to St Cadoc, but it was in Llancarfan that the saint is believed to
have served as abbot, or possibly founded a monastery of some importance.
This gem of a church is best known today for the discovery of medieval wall
paintings in 2008. When layers of whitewash were removed, vibrant images
were revealed including the seven deadly sins, Death dragging a young man
out to the churchyard, and one of the most spectacular tableaux of St George
and the Dragon in a British church. We continue to St Fagans National
Museum of History, the 2019 Art Fund Museum of the Year. Set in 100 acres
of parkland, with over forty original buildings, the Museum shows how the
people of Wales have lived, worked and spent their leisure time over the last
five hundred years.
Day 4
After meeting our Blue Badge guide at our hotel, we have a morning guided
tour of Cardiff. Our guided tour includes a visit to the Senedd, the National
Assembly Building, and the exterior of the Norwegian Sailor’s Church,
established in 1868 to provide religious and social care to thousands of
Norwegian sailors that were employed in the Norwegian merchant fleet.
During our tour, we also see the exterior of the Wales Millennium Centre.
Opened in 2004 and locally known as ‘the Armadillo’, the centre is home to
the national orchestra and opera, dance, theatre and literature companies.
This afternoon we enjoy a behind the scenes award winning tour at BBC
Cymru Wales. During our tour of the BBC’s newest and most advanced
studios we visit one of the largest BBC newsrooms, and take a sneak peek at
TV galleries and other broadcast facilities. Being a live and working broadcast
centre, no two tours are the same!
Day 5
After checking out of our hotel and en route home we visit Rodmarton Manor
and Garden in Gloucestershire, built for Claud and Margaret Biddulph
between 1909 and 1929. Our guided tour of the manor introduces us to a
supreme example of a house built and its furniture made according to Arts
and Crafts ideals. Rodmarton Manor was one of the last country houses to
be built and furnished in the old traditional style when everything was done
by hand with local stone, local timber and local craftsmen. We then have free
time to explore the 8 acre garden, designed as a series of outdoor rooms by
Ernest Barnsley. During our guided tour we enjoy included tea and cake.

Johannes Vermeer’s art is being brought together at the Rijksmuseum in the largest exhibition ever held, with paintings on loan from all over the world.

Apart from the visit to one of the world’s greatest art galleries, the tour will include the Mauritshuis in The Hague, with its outstanding collection of Rembrandt, Van Dyck and Rubens.  Also included are visits to Leiden, the birthplace of Rembrandt, the typical Dutch country town of Gouda and time to explore Delft, which is Vermeer’s birthplace.MORE DETAILS 

In late October2022 a coach party of members set off for an enjoyable three-day visit to Glyndebourne to hear its last performance of the season of Floris Visser’s new production of La Boheme. The coach was very well appointed, the hotel in Eastbourne was comfortable, the weather was kind, the Blue Badge guide was entertaining and informative, and the opera was superb. 

FOR A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE VISIT CLICK HERE CLICK HERE

Visits: Following two fallow years with no visits, the Society managed, in May, to resurrect its promised visit to Halifax. 

Members visited Shibden Hall which dates from 1420 and has a mix of architectural styles, reflecting its history and its usage. It currently houses a museum which devotes itself mainly to the life of the nineteenth century diarist Anne Lister, the subject of a noted BBC series, 'Gentleman Jack'. 

We subsequently admired the architecture of the Piece Hall, accompanied by two knowledgeable local guides expounding on its significant history in the wool trade, and its current usage as a show place for large scale works of art. 

The third part of the visit was spent in listening to an excellent guide on the history of the Halifax Minster and subsequently exploring its nooks and crannies. 

THIS REPORT IS BEST ENJOYED IN FULL IN THE ANNUAL NEWSLETTER 2020 here

Lichfield provided 24 members with a very full day of visits to three quite different features of this fine city. 

Erasmus Darwin was an eminent scientist, inventor, a founder of the Lunar Society and grandfather of Charles Darwin. In 1776 he purchased a medieval half- timbered building in Lichfield which he converted to the large Georgian red brick and stucco building which we visited. Our very informative guide began by taking us to the cellars where Darwin on occasion stored bodies prior to dissection. Upstairs, in addition to period rooms was an exhibition room displaying models of his inventions. 

Darwin had perceptive and controversial ideas on evolution, ideas which to a degree preceded those of his grandson half a century later. Darwin also had a great interest in poetry which, like his ideas on evolution, were heavily criticised by the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others. Details of Darwin’s life have been published by Desmond King-Hele FRS in the Notes and Records of the Royal Society, of which Darwin was a Fellow. This is available on free access at, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.1998.0042

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum is in an attractive four storey house overlooking the market square. The house was built in 1707 by Johnson’s father and used as his bookshop as well as residence. Samuel was born in the house in 1709 and spent most of his early life there before leaving for London with his friend David Garrick in 1737. It 

remained in his ownership until his death in 1784. The city acquired the house in 1900. After a very full account of Johnson’s life by our guide we were left to ramble through the five stories and steep staircases of a delightful house. We saw reconstructed rooms, audio visual displays and a varied collection of prints, paintings, sculpture, furniture and books, including of course an example of the Dictionary. 

Our cathedral tour was in two parts; one concentrating on the architecture, the other given by a specialist on various military links, who began by introducing us to memorials of the Staffordshire Regiments. 

The windows of the Lady Chapel were a major feature of our visit. Originally designed for an abbey in Herkenrode in modern day Belgium, the stained-glass windows are justly famous and were brought to Lichfield in 1803 to save them from Napoleon and to replace windows damaged during the Civil War. On account of the effects of weather and pollution over the years it was decided to remove the collection for restoration in 2010. They were reinstalled in 2015 adding to the pleasure and timeliness of our visit. 

As we viewed the Cathedral exterior we were told of its long history of change. First consecrated in 700, a new cathedral was built by the Normans after 1066 which was itself replaced in the Gothic style by c. 1340. The Close was fortified in the 13th century and became an important strategic settlement with the result that during the Civil War it was heavily attacked, changing hands three times, finally becoming a garrison for the Roundheads until the Restoration. By this time the cathedral was in a state of ruin having lost its roof and central spire, statues, monuments, documents and carvings. The Cathedral and Close flourished again in the 18th c. becoming an important centre of culture and learning, and in the 19th c. had a major restoration by Sir George Gilbert Scott to become the structure we see today. 

Finally, in the late afternoon, we left for home with heads buzzing at the revelations that Lichfield had given us. Grenville Turner

On a ‘flinchingly’ cold day, and after a rather foggy journey through the Pennines via Buxton and Leek, we arrived at Burslem and the Moorcroft ceramics factory. We discovered that we had arrived on ‘Black Friday‘ to find that lots of items in the eye- wateringly priced shop were reduced to half price. And that the Christmas market had ‘free‘ coffee and mincepies available. The factory Tour (for 20 people) went well and many purchases were made. 

After lunch we left to go to Cheadle, Staffordshire, just 10 miles north of Stoke, and on meeting John Smith, our Pugin St Giles Church guide, we realised we were in good hands. Having pointed out some landmarks, we proceeded to St Giles which stands in all its splendour at one end of this smallish town, with a 208ft spire dominating the landscape. After tea and cakes in the church, he gave us a very comprehensive tour of this magnificent Church.

The church was built in the period 1836-46 by John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury whose family seat was at nearby Alton Hall - now Alton Towers! It was Talbot’s aim to promote Catholicism to the local people in a way which had not been done since the Reformation, 300 years before. But he was also interested in the intellectual and physical well-being of his ‘subjects’, building a school and a convent for the Irish Nuns who taught at the school before even laying the church foundations.

He employed a young and untried architect and designer from London called Augustus Pugin - a second choice, because his boss was too busy! He, in turn, employed a workforce of masons, plasterers, painters and sculptors from across Europe. They were all accommodated at Talbot’s expense. The decorations are stunning and there are several important works of art that are virtually unique. Amongst them is a carved sandstone and alabaster 6-sided pulpit, a beautiful rood screen, and a priceless 14th century triptych in the lady chapel. This is a place of worship well worth a visit if you are in the area.

As the original visit was well oversubscribed, a second equally successful visit,  but with much better weather, was arranged for 4th June 2019.

Boughton House revels in the nickname of “The English Versailles”. Although somewhat smaller than the palace in France it still has 12 entrances, 52 chimney stacks and 365 windows. The house was originally begun around 1500 on an estate owned by the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury which was extended in the 16thcentury and then transformed into the ornate residence we see today by Ralph Montagu who became 1st Duke of Montagu in the late 17th century. The collection includes portraits by Lely, Van Dyke, the Sevres porcelain and a wonderful early El Greco.

When we visited it was holding an exhibition called ‘Legacies – J.M.W.Turner and contemporary practice’. There was also a selection of book illustrations by Quentin Blake and other illustrators in the family room. Both very interesting, but the collection we came to see was the Garmen Ryan collection, one of the most exciting and eclectic selections of art works in the country. 

Kathleen Garmen was Jacob Epstein’s second wife and after his death she and her friend, Sally Ryan, donated these works to Walsall. At first they were housed on the first floor of Walsall reference library and opened to the public in 1974 but then moved to their purpose built home in the New Gallery,t it contains the largest selection of Epstein’s work in the country; we can see bronzes, portraits, as well as earrings and busts. Interestingly it 

also contains studies – Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sorrow’, Cezanne’s ‘Baigneurs (Grande planche)’, Modigliani’s ‘Caryatid’, and works by Monet, Corot, Edward Burne-Jones and so many more.