ACMS Events - 2022 — Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey

The following lectures were presented during 2022

Dr Jim Cheshire – Stained Glass –The making of Arts & Crafts stained glass in the mid to late Victorian era. Online. 16 March 2022.

Olive Maggs – Newlyn Arts & Crafts copper work 1890-1930 11 October 2022

Charles O’Brien – REVISING PEVSNER – A new look at the buildings of Surrey 16 November 2022

The following visits and events were held during 2022

The Sidney Sime Gallery, Worplesdon – 30 March 2022.

Visit to Kitty Milroy’s Murals in St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale, mural’s exhibition, Farnham Museum and afternoon tea – 21 April 2022.

Annual General Meeting – 18 May 2022

Visit to Thursley – home of the Lutyens family – 29 June 2022

A Visit to Great Roke, Witley and Fintry, Brook – 27 July 2022

A visit to Munstead Wood, Godalming – 20 August 2022

Tour of the Sussex Coast – 13 to 15 September 2022

Christmas Lunch at Frimley Hall Hotel, Frimley – 4 December 2022

LECTURES

Stained Glass –The making of Arts & Crafts stained glass in the mid to late Victorian era Dr Jim Cheshire

Wednesday, 16th March 2022 at 7.30pm

Online.

Victorian stained glass manufacturers created windows to suit a range of tastes and worked in a variety of styles. Dr Jim Cheshire will explore the emergence of the Arts and Crafts ethos through the evolution of stained glass in the Victorian period and trace how concerns about the materials, artistic value and historicism laid the foundations for Arts and Crafts stained glass.

St Michael, Worcester Cathedral by Christopher Whall

Dr Cheshire recently contributed the stained glass section for The Routledge Companion to William Morris and has also contributed the section on Victorian Medievalism and Secular Design for the Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism. His research has examined the literary and visual culture of the 19th Century and he has worked specifically on stained glass and the Gothic Revival. He presented a lecture to the Pre- Raphaelite Society last summer and having attended that I thought how good it would be to have him talk to us on the same subject -stained glass – but focused on Arts and Crafts designers. His wealth of knowledge is not to be missed.

Newlyn Arts & Crafts copper work 1890-1930 Olive Maggs and Charles Gillespie

Tuesday 11th October 7.30pm for 8.00pm

at Blackheath Village Hall

A Lecture by Olive Maggs and display of copper work by Charles Gillespie. Established in Newlyn, Cornwall in 1890, the Newlyn Industrial Class had an important role in the social and artistic development of the local community. The class produced hand beaten copper work from the 1890s and continued into the twentieth century. ‘Newlyn Copper’ was useful and beautiful and is now recognised as representing a unique and important part of the history of the British Arts and Crafts.

Olive BA, PGCE, MA is an art historian and lecturer having taught and examined Art History for many years.

REVISING PEVSNER – A new look at the buildings of Surrey Charles O’Brien
Wednesday 16th November 7.30pm for 8.00pm

at Assembly Room, The Guildford Institute

The Pevsner Architectural Guides were begun in 1951 by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83) with the aim of providing an up-to-date portable guide to the most significant buildings in every part of the country, suitable for both general reader and specialist. The success of the volumes covering The Buildings of England led to the extension of the series to Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Each volume provided an introductory overview of the architecture of the area, followed by a descriptive gazetteer. The first edition of the Buildings of England volume for Surrey was published in 1962, co-authored by Nikolaus Pevsner and Ian Nairn. A long-awaited fully revised edition of the guide for Surrey, the first since Bridget Cherry’s revision in 1971, will be published in November by Yale University Press. It revisits Surrey’s major monuments such as Waverley Abbey and Farnham Castle but also extends its scope to a wide diversity of structures of the more recent past with greater appreciation of the twentieth century, from Modernist villas to Guildford’s Cathedral and Postmodern Business Parks. Greater coverage is given to its many towns, eighteenth-century landscape gardens, and the remains of its industrial heritage. The guide once more brings to the fore the county’s unrivalled collection of Victorian and Edwardian architecture from the celebrated houses by Philip Webb, Norman Shaw, Lutyens, Voysey, and their multiple disciples to major institutions like Royal Holloway College and Charterhouse School. Charles O’Brien, the series editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides, published by Yale University Press, has researched, edited and written several volumes since 1997 and will talk about the history of the series, the tasks of revision as well as some discoveries that have come to light in the course of research highlighting the expanding range of coverage of the Arts and Crafts dimension.

VISITS AND EVENTS

The Sidney Sime Gallery, Worplesdon

30 March 2022 2.00pm – 4.00pm

Sidney Herbert Sime (1865-1941), was Master of the Mysterious and a brilliant black and white Victorian illustrator working in a style akin to that of Beardsley and Rackham. He was an illustrator for publications such as Tatler and The Illustrated London News. He also designed stage sets for the London theatre. His wife left 800 items of his very varied work to the Trustees of Worplesdon Memorial Hall. A Trustee will give an introductory talk about Sime’s life and work and the Hall. This was built in 1922 to commemorate, like so many village halls, the fallen of World War 1. The gallery is tiny, so numbers are restricted to 20 and we will split into two groups. Tea/ coffee and cake will be served. There will also be an opportunity to see the nearby house where Sime lived for 37 years, formerly a Coaching Inn, and his grave at St Mary’s church.

Vvisit to Kitty Milroy’s Murals in St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale, mural’s exhibition, Farnham Museum and afternoon tea.

Thursday 21st April 2022 10.30am – 3.00pm

In 1911 Kitty Milroy began painting the walls of St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale. Using the spirit fresco technique, over the next 9 years, Kitty painted the Annunciation over the church altar and the Benedicite, the hymn of nature celebrating God’s creation, on the chancel walls. Skilfully painted in beautiful colours, intricate symbols and patterns, the murals illustrate Kitty’s love of nature and the landscape connecting her to the Arts & Crafts style. Olive Maggs, who researched into Kitty’s artistic practise will give an introductory talk about the murals and Kitty’s life and work in the church. We will have the opportunity to visit Farnham Museum where a small exhibition, near the Arts & Crafts section, details the conservation work carried out on the murals. Afternoon tea will follow in Willey Park (now Farnham House Hotel) built 1896 in the style of Norman Shaw.

Annual General Meeting and lecture

at Arbuthnot Hall, Shamley Green

Wednesday, 18th May 2022 7.30pm

Following the AGM proceedings, a lecture by Sarah Dickinson Gertrude Jeykll: Highlights of the Surrey Arts and Crafts garden Plans.
Explaining the conservation project to digitise, catalogue and publish electronically the documents contained in the Gertrude Jekyll Collection housed in the archives at the University of California, Berkeley.
ACMS contributed project funding. Sarah Dickinson is a property lawyer and has an MSc in the Conservation of Historic Gardens and Cultural Landscapes. She is a consultant and qualified garden designer specialising in historic landscape and domestic gardens. Sarah is Chair of the Surrey Gardens Trust and editor of their newsletter. She is Vice Chair of the Conservation Committee of the Gardens Trust.

Thursley village :The early home of Edwin Lutyens

Wednesday, 29th June 2022 11.00 am – 2.30 pm

The month of June takes us to the village of Thursley which sits to the west of the A3 between Milford and Hindhead. Edwin Lutyens’ parents rented The Cottage in Thursley between approximately 1876 and 1915 and the young Lutyens moved there with the family when he was six years old. Ten years later he was to start his studies at The South Kensington School of Art but much of his formative years were spent here with his parents and his many siblings. Thursley has a number of Lutyens early commissions and gives us the rare chance to view some of his early works. We shall have a guided walk around the village and the churchyard of St Michaels with its Lutyens family memorials. We shall see “Street House” formerly “The Cottage” the house staying in family occupation after Charles Lutyens’ death, in 1915, when his sister Aileen continued to live there. Also to be viewed on the walk is “The Corner”. Lutyens was commissioned in 1888 at the age of 19 to convert a row of cottages to form this single residence and seven years later designed a further extension. “Prospect cottage” is one of Thursley’s most delightful buildings. Formerly the Village Institute, it was designed by Lutyens and formally opened and given to the Parish Council in 1901. The Institute was disbanded in 1959 and the building converted to residential use.

A Visit to Great Roke, Witley and Fintry, Brook

Wednesday, 27th July 2022 10.30am – 4.30pm

This event features two of Surrey’s hidden gems, two Arts and Crafts Movement country houses of the early 20th Century built with considerable architectural flair and set in Edwardian gardens within woodland settings. Neither are listed, nor described in Pevsner (that is, not as yet). Built as family homes – Great Roke in 1909 and Fintry in 1911 – both are notable in that much of the original character survives: from wood panelling, plasterwork and fireplaces, to door and window furniture, through to kitchen cupboards and tiling.
Great Roke was designed for Charles and Agnes Dixon by HT Buckland and EH Farmer, one of the leading Arts and Crafts architectural firms of the Birmingham movement, with plasterwork by RM Catterson Smith, former principal of the Municipal School of Art, Birmingham. The gardens were commissioned of Gertrude Jekyll in 1910 and, although much altered, the formal design may be seen still. Since 1952 the Roke Estate has been home to Barrows Hill School, a co-educational day school, now run by the school’s parent foundation – Bridewell Royal Hospital.
The architect of Fintry was London-based AR Hennell, who emigrated to the United States in 1912, which explains why his work is likely unfamiliar. Mrs Margaret Lodge and family are named as resident on the 1911 census. The house is reminiscent of Voysey’s Broadleys. The original borders, terraces and steps of the garden blend the house into the Greensand hillside and offer distant views over the weald. The Universal Order acquired the property circa World War II and in 1996 established the educational charity named The Fintry Trust. Fintry is used to promote philosophical and spiritual development by offering a range of public educational programmes and retreats. There will be an opportunity to view some of the rare books of the Fintry Trust library.

A Visit to Munstead Wood Godalming

Saturday 20th August 2022 10.30 am – 12.30 pm

Although this event has been arranged and is notified at short notice, the Society is delighted to have the opportunity for members to visit Munstead Wood, the former home of Miss Gertrude Jekyll (1843 –1932), Artist, Gardener and Craftswoman. As Munstead Wood is currently on the market with Knight Frank estate agents this may be a rare chance for a visit for some time to come.
The house was designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1896, it was an early work of his career and followed on from his design of 1895 for ‘The Hut’, Grade II listed, where Miss Jekyll lived whilst Munstead Wood was being constructed by the local builder, Thomas Underwood. Miss Jekyll had for several years been laying out her woodland garden on the triangular-shaped plot at Munstead Heath when she first met and invited the young Lutyens to see it.
Munstead Wood is a two-storey, U-shaped Tudor-style house of Bargate stone with some half timbering, plain tiled roofs and prominent brick chimney stacks. The collaboration between architect and client resulted in one of the finest of Arts and Crafts homes, beautifully crafted and rooted in the Surrey vernacular. It forged the start of long and successful working partnership creating country houses and gardens that were celebrated in Country Life Magazine, the architectural press and Jekyll’s own writing. Both house and garden are Grade I listed.
Our visit will focus, not on the garden, but on the house, with a guided tour of the interior rooms. After the visit you may like to see the Lutyens designed Jekyll Memorial in Busbridge Churchyard or visit Godalming Museum, which has an Arts and Crafts Gallery illustrating the work of Gertrude Jekyll and Sir Edwin Lutyens. Godalming has a choice of cafés for lunch.

The Arts and Crafts Heritage of the Sussex coast

Tuesday 13th – Thursday 15th September 2022

After an hiatus of two years due to Covid, we are pleased to confirm that the twice postponed tour of the Sussex coast is now going ahead.

On day one, we start in Brighton with a visit to the Museum and Art Gallery. Our guide will be Dr Anne Anderson. After lunch we plan to visit two churches containing important collections of early and late Morris glass. The Church of St Michael and All Angels begun by GF Bodley and completed by William Burges contains the first large scale work of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Brighton College chapel contains late Morris & Co glass including the work of John Henry Dearle. We will continue to the Hydro Hotel, Eastbourne where we will be based for two nights.

Stained glass, All Saints Chapel, Eastbourne

The focus for our second day is Eastbourne where two of our local members have put together an interesting programme. We will begin with walking tours to see work by local Arts and Crafts architects, Richard Goulburn Lovell and Peter Dulvey Stonham. Our morning will continue at the Towner Art Gallery with a visit to the Eric Ravilious gallery. In the afternoon, we will visit George Edmund Street’s ‘noble church’ of St Saviour’s. Built on a turnip field in 1868, it has the tallest spire in Eastbourne. We will end the day with a tour and afternoon tea at All Saints Chapel. This was designed by Henry Woodyer between 1867 and 1874 for an Anglican order of nuns for a convalescent hospital. The chapel has a ‘fine and complete High Victorian interior’.

Christmas lunch at Frimley Hall Hotel, Camberley

Sunday 4th December 2022 12.30pm – 4.30pm

Hermon House was built by a wealthy wine merchant, Thomas Boyes, in the 1880s. Under later owners it was called Frimley Hall. One was a Mr J.F Wright, whose family wealth came from Wrights’ Coal Tar Soap, which many people still use today. His wife, formally Miss Avery, came from the family who had manufactured Avery Scales, which were soon to belong to many housewives in the country.
Frimley Hall is listed as a building of local significance, with listed William Morris wallpaper, and is one of the few remaining buildings of this size and age in the area. Frimley Hall is now owned by Macdonald Hotels and Resorts.

This year’s event will include an illustrated presentation reviewing the year’s visits and lectures with a preview of events for 2023, as well as a raffle and a quiz. Lunch will be served in the Frimley Suite.

ACMS Events - 2022

ACMS EVENTS - 2023

ACMS Events - 2021