Our Monday lectures are held in St George’s Hall, Blockley at 2.30pm for a 2.45pm start.
MONDAY 16 JUNE 2025
Ian Swankie
Thomas Heatherwick – a modern Leonardo?
The first decade of the twenty-first century saw the meteoric rise of this extraordinarily versatile British designer who went on to produce his acclaimed Olympic Cauldron, the iconic new London bus and a spectacular new HQ building for Google amongst many other award-winning projects. The Heatherwick Studio has used an intriguing combination of curiosity and experimentation to produce a vast range of solutions to design challenges around the world. This lecture looks at the problems presented, and the wonderfully creative ways in which Heatherwick and his team have responded.
Ian Swankie is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his hometown of Richmond in West London, and he gives talks on a variety of subjects. He is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars.
MONDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2025
Simon Williams
Don’t put your daughter (or son) on the stage
This is the advice Noel Coward gives to Mrs Worthington and given that unemployment in the Actors’ Union runs at over 80 per cent, he may have a point. It’s not a career for the faint or half-hearted. In this lecture Simon Williams will try not to paint too gloomy a picture, but talk about the thrill and process of getting a part and how to prepare for it. There’ll be some advice about how to face those twin imposters: ‘triumph and disaster.’ We will learn about the mistakes he has made and the c***-ups (embarrassments) he has been party to – both on stage and off. There will also be advice on how to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, should the need arise.
For this lecture guests are asked to pay £15 and book in advance by contacting Elaine Parker on 01386 840326.
A well known actor of stage and screen, Simon Williams is now a fully accredited Arts Society lecturer and we are delighted to welcome him to Blockley to give our 40th Anniversary Lecture.
Simon’s work has included theatre, television (known especially for Upstairs Downstairs) and film. He is a writer and columnist and plays Justin Elliott in The Archers. He loves to travel but not by plane, and loves Ocean Liners but is not a good sightseer – he can ‘whip round a stately home or a museum in no time’. His favourite hobby is probably talking to his seven grandchildren (22 - 13).
MONDAY 20 OCTOBER 2025
Amy Lim
The Baroque country house
Many of Britain’s best-loved country houses were created in the ‘Baroque’ period (c. 1660-1720). Visiting some of the most iconic houses of the period, including Chatsworth, Petworth, and Blenheim, we will meet the patrons who created them, and look at some of the highlights of their sumptuous interiors, gardens and collections, addressing the question: what is ‘Baroque’?
Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. She is curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, and of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. She is also an exhibition researcher at Tate, contributing to British Baroque: Power and Illusion (2020) and Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520-1920 (2024). Amy has degrees in History and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She runs an online art dealership, and has published articles and essays on a variety of art-related topics from gothic garden monuments to female patronage.
MONDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2025
Caroline Walker
Discovering MacDonald Gill: architect, artist and mapmaker
MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill, younger brother of the sculptor Eric Gill, was an architect, letterer, and graphic artist of the first half of the twentieth century. He was famed for his pictorial map posters for the London Underground and painted map panels for landmark buildings such as Lindisfarne Castle and the Palace of Westminster. His architectural legacy lives on in the arts and crafts cottages he designed in rural Sussex and Dorset while the alphabet and badges he created for the standard military headstone are familiar to all. This wonderfully illustrated talk by Max Gill's great-niece gives fascinating insights into the life and work of this remarkable but little-known artist.
Caroline Walker began research into her great-uncle ‘Max’ in 2006. Since then she has co-curated several exhibitions of his work around the country, contributed articles to publications including Country Life and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and set up a dedicated website. An accredited lecturer for The Arts Society since 2016, she has also given talks for organisations such as the National Archives, the Art Workers' Guild, Christie’s and the National Trust. Her illustrated biography MacDonald Gill: Charting a Life was published in June 2020.
MONDAY 1 DECEMBER 2025
Jane Tapley
Dickens and Christmas
This lecture is a Christmas version of the life and times of the most famous novelist in the world. Charles Dickens was a complex man driven by a vivid imagination and the need to succeed in his chosen career. Find out why he was often referred to as Jolly Old Christmas and learn what fabulously popular phrase he coined that is still popular today in the Festive Season.
Jane Tapley is a Special Events Organiser at the Theatre Royal Bath. She frequently interviews visiting actors, writers and directors. She is also a West Country Blue Badge Guide and Lecturer. In her ‘down time’ she is an author and researcher not least of theatre programme notes, a home economist and a theatrical landlady. Jane has also been a consultant on food in the 18th and 19th centuries to various TV productions of Jane Austen adaptations.
