Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

The history of English garden design can be told in different ways, but rarely can it be told "through the lens" of one garden. The Oxford Botanic Garden was founded at the beginning of the 17th century and its design bears all the hallmarks of 17th century design. Through the next 400 years successive Horti Praefecti (head gardeners) changed the features reflecting the art of gardening, and very occasionally the science of botany. This talk looks at how the art of gardening has changed, or perhaps has not, in four centuries in Oxfordshire and how the Oxford Botanic Garden now reflects garden design at the beginning of the 21st century. The title of the talk refers to the fact that one of the motivations for garden design remains the desire to create paradise on Earth. The meaning of paradise may now be less rooted in the Biblical account of the rise and fall of man, but there is still a clear vision of what we would like the world to resemble.  

I read Botany at University College Oxford. After graduation, I worked as a trainee at Oxford Botanic Garden, the Savill Garden Windsor, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. In 1985 I was awarded a Master of Horticulture by the Royal Horticultural Society of London. From 1988 to 2014 I was director (Horti Praefectus) at the Oxford Botanic Garden. Between 1992 & 2000 the OBGHA won 4 gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show London. In 2009 the Botanic Garden was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for providing imaginative educational programmes for adults, students, children, and the general public, thereby breathing new life into education for people of all ages and enriching their lives. In 2010 I was elected as a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. In the same year I presented a 3-part series of films on the history of botany on BBC4. Since 2014 I have been a tutor in Plant Biology at Somerville College, Oxford.    

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

The founder's grandson tells story of the publisher, Faber & Faber, and of the art used on its books, from its beginnings to the present day. Since its foundation in 1925, Faber and Faber has built a reputation as one of London’s most important literary publishing houses. Part of that relates to the editorial team that Geoffrey Faber and his successors built around them - TS Eliot was famously an early recruit - but a large part is also due to the firm’s insistence on good design and illustration. Early years brought innovations like the Ariel Poems – single poems, beautifully illustrated, sold in their own envelopes - and contacts with some of the great artists of the inter-war years. From the 1940s, there was an emphasis on typography, led by the firm’s art director Berthold Wolpe; his Albertus font is still used on City of London road signs. In the 1980s, the firm started its association with Pentagram, responsible for the ff logo. Along the way, it has employed some of our most celebrated artists as cover illustrators – from Rex Whistler and Barnett Freedman to Peter Blake and Damien Hirst.

The talk will also be peppered with personal insight and anecdote. Faber and Faber is the last of the great publishing houses to remain independent. As the grandson of its founder, I grew up steeped in its books. I was managing director for four years and I remain on the board. I am passionate about the firm’s success, and intensely proud of my association with it.   

Toby is an experienced lecturer and public speaker who has been accredited by The Arts Society since 2012. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. He is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music and a director of Liverpool University Press. Toby has written three narrative histories: Stradivarius – Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius; Faberge’s Eggs; and Faber & Faber – The Untold Story, as well as a novel, Close to the Edge. Of these, only the obvious one is published by the family firm.

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

This lecture looks at the evolution of the Hollywood musical from the beginnings of the sound revolution in 1929 through its glory years in the golden age of Hollywood to its near disappearance at the end of the studio era and its occasional revival in recent years through The Producers and Chicago. There will be excerpts from 42nd Street, Golddiggers of 1933, Swing Time with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in Babes on Broadway and Gene Kelly in An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain. In so doing, the lecture reveals the emergence of a genuine American art form and looks at how the Hollywood musical evolved from the Broadway musical comedy to create something specifically American and cinematic.

Colin Shindler has been lecturing on American and British social and cultural history for over 30 years. He was awarded his PhD at Cambridge University and subsequently lectured on film for their History Faculty between 1998 and 2019 exploring its relationship to modern British and American social and cultural history. He also teaches a variety of adult education courses at Madingley and Higham Hall in Cumbria and has lectured on cruises. Between 1975 and 1999 he pursued a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and film. He won a BAFTA award for his production of A Little Princess. His production of Young Charlie Chaplin was nominated for a US Prime Time Emmy. He wrote the screenplay for the feature film Buster and was the producer of various television dramas such as Lovejoy and Wish Me Luck. He has written three novels as well as numerous television scripts and radio plays but regards his greatest cultural contribution as choosing the title music for the police series Juliet Bravo. His most recent radio play to be broadcast on Radio 4 was Leni Goes to Hollywood, about the German film director Leni Riefenstahl. Other radio plays for R4 included How To Be An Internee(about P.G. Wodehouse) and one on Private Eye & The Profumo Affair(Rumours). He is the author of Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches: The Controversial South Africa Cricket Tour of 1970 which was short listed for the MCC/Wisden Cricket Book of the Year in 2021. He is best known for his childhood memoir Manchester United Ruined My Life which was short listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. His other publications include Hollywood Goes To War: Films & American Society 1939-1952 and Hollywood in Crisis: Films & American Society 1929-1939.  His next book is called Boom!: The Story of a Generation. 

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

My family were prosperous bankers and passionate collectors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection they formed remains together and is exceptionally important. In addition to fine early domestic plate, primarily from England and Germany, it is mostly known for wonderfully virtuoso princely objects incorporating rare and exotic materials. This lecture came about through an exhibition at the Wallace Collection in 2007; it focuses in equal measure on the objects themselves as on the two generations of collectors who built the collection up over five or six decades between about 1880 and 1930. This lecture is particularly timely as the collection was placed on long-term loan in a specially designed gallery in the Holburne Museum in Bath in 2025.

Historian of gold and silver. Curator of Decorative Arts, Los Angeles County Museum of Arts 1984-89. Director, Partridge Fine Arts 1991-7. Keeper, Gilbert Collection 1997-2000. Consultant Curator, V&A 2000-2010. Prime Warden, Goldsmiths’ Company,  2015-16 and 2019-20. Fellow, Society of Antiquaries 1994. DLitt (Oxford) 2013. Trustee, Wallace Collection  2013-2023. Trustee, City and Guilds Art School from 2020. Member, Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission  2018-2023. Publications include: English Domestic Silver (1988); Renaissance Silver from the Schroder Collection (2007); Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum (2009); ‘A Marvel to Behold’, Gold and Silver at the Court of Henry VIII (2020); and numerous articles.

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

This lecture explores the Slade School of Fine Art as a crucial training ground for some of Britain’s most influential artists. Founded in 1871, the lecture begins by examining the school’s guiding ideals and its emphasis on disciplined drawing and critical thought. The lecture then considers the work of the Bloomsbury Group, highlighting key Slade figures such as Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and their role in shaping modern British art and design. Moving through the twentieth century, it explores major artists including Augustus John, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Paula Rego and Euan Uglow. The lecture concludes with more recent alumni such as Antony Gormley, Rachel Whiteread and Phyllida Barlow, underscoring the Slade’s enduring cultural impact.

Ian Giles studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and is a practising artist. His artworks and films have been shown internationally, including at MoMA PS1 (New York), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and the Whitechapel Gallery (London).

He has been a visiting lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts, Cambridge School of Art, Camberwell College of Arts, Birmingham School of Art and the University of Cambridge, Department of Architecture.

His work has been supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund, The Jerwood Foundation, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Recent press coverage includes features and reviews in The Guardian, Frieze, Artforum, and on BBC radio and television.

In 2026 he will present exhibitions and projects at Queer Britain, Southampton City Art Gallery and Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery.

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

Elizabeth Thompson was born in 1846 and was brought up in Italy and England. She attended the Female School of Art at South Kensington. In 1874 this genteel Victorian lady sent a painting of the Crimean War to the Royal Academy where it was an outstanding success. From then on she almost exclusively painted battle scenes, from Waterloo to Afghanistan and World War I. In 1877 Elizabeth married Major William Butler whose career culminated in a knighthood and the rank of General. They had five children.  She accompanied her husband to Egypt and South Africa and continued to paint until her death in 1933. General Butler retired in 1905 and they went to live in Tipperary.

MA degree in Fine Art Valuation and BA in History and Economics. Experienced cruise lecturer and lecturer to National Trust, Rotary, yacht clubs, public school sixth forms and retirement groups such as U3A and ProBus. Member of the Nelson Society and 1805 Club. Programme Secretary of Blackmore Vale for four years and formerly committee member of Wimborne.

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

Subtitled (in Edith's own words) 'Such costumes as I have never seen before and never shall again perhaps’, the lecture is illustrated with rich fabrics and great stories.  Edith Durham's travels in the first decades of the twentieth century took her across the unexplored Accursed Mountains between Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania, to what are now UNESCO World Heritage Site monasteries, and through bazaars she describes as ‘glowing with goods’. In watercolours and in seven published books she recorded the objects she collected, the landscapes she visited and the people she met. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and was the first woman to become its Vice President. The lively lecture draws on my book, Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013). The book was the first biographical work on Edith Durham in English and was described by The Times as 'the most delicious and delightful read of the summer’.

Studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. Moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Speaks fluent Albanian and has translated two books (the unauthorised biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaci, and the memoirs of one of the leaders of the 1912 uprising). Also the author of four books about Kosovo – Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013); The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015) and The Silver Thread; a journey through Balkan craftmanship (2017). Her latest book (2022 - with Robert Wilton) is No Man's Lands: 8 extraordinary women in Balkan history. Regular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service. She has worked as a member of the advisory board of GuideKS, the NGO for Kosovan tour guides, and of the board of Faktoje, the Albanian fact-checking organisation.

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

At the height of the great Gothic revival in church architecture during the 19th century stained glass windows enjoyed a renaissance. Already famous for their innovative designs, William Morris, Edward Burne Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox-Brown were responsible for some of the most beautiful stained glass windows of the 19th and 20th centuries. This lecture will look at the history of how ‘The Firm’ brought church windows to life with their new vibrant colours and sensuous designs. The languid faces of the saints and holy family often modelled on real life portraits of their friends and lovers.  

Geri Parlby's career spans across diverse fields. She started as a news and investigative reporter via Mirror Group newspapers before becoming Head of Press for United International Pictures, handling major blockbuster publicity campaigns from Paramount, Universal, MGM & UA studios throughout the 1980s. She then set up her own London based film and video PR agency which she ran for 8 years before retiring to start a family. 

Driven by her passion for art she studied for an MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute before gaining a theology PhD from the University of Roehampton. 

Geri's extensive knowledge and engaging speaking style led her to become an accredited NADFAS/Arts Society lecturer and she has been lecturing both across the UK and internationally for the past 20 years.  

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

This lecture traces the history of Inuit art in Canada from the decoration of practical objects thousands of years ago to the production of the large charismatic stone carvings and wood-cut prints that we recognise today. It particularly considers the surprising impact of the Canadian government on the production of this distinctive artistic style.

Henrietta Hammant is a museum anthropologist with a love of the polar regions. She holds degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology from the University of Oxford. Recently, she has completed her PhD in the Anthropology of Heritage at the University of Reading, with a focus on Heroic Age Antarctic explorers and their representation in British museums. She has worked in museums across Canada and the UK, including as Assistant Curator at the Itsanitaq Museum in Churchill, Manitoba, and Collections Coordinator at the Polar Museum, part of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. She has visited Antarctic twice as a cruise ship lecturer, receiving audience reviews of 93%. She is now an Impact Fellow at the University of Nottingham, working to decolonise Nottingham City Museums and Galleries’ collection of North American ethnographic objects.

Lecture at 11am in Croscombe Village Hall (see under "Our Society/Where we Meet" for more information)

The most significant proof of the power of art is the fact that some people feel the need to destroy it. Attacks and acts of destruction have gone on for as long as art has existed, from the iconoclastic riots of the Protestant Reformation to climate protesters’ defilement of historical paintings in national museums. This lecture will explore artworks that have survived despite attacks, the appeal of ruins and the practice of using destructive strategies to create art.

Aliki studied at The Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford, The Slade School and The Courtauld Institute where she was awarded a distinction for her masters in 17th century painting. She has been working for The National Gallery for 25 years and teaches for Christie’s Education, The Wallace Collection and numerous private clients. Aliki is also a practising artist who regularly exhibits her photographic work internationally and has taught at Camberwell College of Art.