Please note this event has been postponed to September 2020.
This event will be confirmed once the house and curators give a specific date.
Visit to Stourhead
We have organised a Society tour to Stourhead in Wiltshire to view the house and tour the gardens between 11am and 4pm on Saturday 9th May. In the morning we will tour the house with Stourhead expert Dudley Dodd, author of past Stourhead guidebooks as well as a book on the Peretti Cabinet that was bought by Henry Hoare II in 1740 whilst on Grand Tour in Rome. After lunch we will tour the 18th-century English Landscape garden by Society member John Harrison.
The planned schedule for the day is as follows:
10.30am Meet at Gillingham (Dorset) railway station for taxi transfer to Stourhead*
11am-1pm Tour of Stourhead House with special visit to view the garden temple furniture now stored in the basement of the house.
1-2pm Lunch
2-4pm Garden Tour
4pm Depart to Gillingham station
* The timetable for May 2020 is not yet available, but an 8.20am departure is expected
We hope very much that members will join us for this special event. Henry Hoare II is perhaps best known for his landscape garden, but he was also an accomplished collector and patron of new artists. A number of significant pieces were lost in the 1883 Heirloom sale, including pieces by Rembrandt, Poussin and an early Gainsborough landscape. Happily, items by artists favoured by 18th-century collectors (Poussin, Dughet & Rosa) are still well represented in the collection, as well as more unusual items by artists such as Lagrenée.
Final details of the event and tickets will be available through Eventbrite.