Our group enjoyed a wonderful private tour of some of the highlights of The Wallace Collection.  Our guide was so good - informative, keen to engage with the group and easy on the ear!  What an amazing collection it is, and we saw only a fraction of what it has to offer.  We saw 17th and 18th century cabinetry featuring intricate turtleshell and metal marquetry and some wonderful collections of Sevres porcelain.  We were treated to insights into some famous paintings (Fragonard's The Swing and Jan Steen's Celebrating the Birth are both full of hidden meanings) and of course a close look at Hals' exuberant The Laughing Cavalier.

For anyone with time on their hands in London, a visit to Manchester Square is highly recommended!

OVER SUBSCRIBED!  This tour has now sold out so we cannot accept any more bookings.  We hope to run another visit to Somerset House in the spring.

Our private tour will take a walk through the varied an surprising history of the site, take a peek behind closed doors, step into the fascinating Deadhouse, explore an unrivalled architectural gem and learn more about the very special story of this building and amazing individuals who have lived and worked here across the centuries.

Please note that this tour takes you to part of the building that has uneven surfaces and small raised sections beween doorways and therefore may not be suitable or all.  We will meet our guide at Seamen's Hall in the South Wing 15 minutes before the tour is due to commence.

Monday 29 September from 11am-1pm

Only 20 places - £20 per person

 We have booked Sophie Campbell, a Blue Badge Guide, to lead us in a walk around the streets of this fascinating area of London.  We will meet at Liverpool Street station before diving into the streets east of the station, past hidden synagogues, fine churches, a Roman burial, tiny Georgian shopfronts, the remnants of the garment industry and elegant fronted weavers’ houses.

This is a two hour walk with a 20 minute pause in the middle for a comfort break and coffee.  The roads are flat but can be uneven.  The walk will end at about 1pm near the revitalised Spitalfields market, where there are plenty of lunch options.

 Information about the meeting point will be provided near to the date.

Please find the booking form here:

https://tasrtw.org.uk/DocumentStore/Spitalfields%20Walk%20Booking%20Form.pdf

Our first visit to the Royal Opera House was a sell out, so we decided to run it again for the benefit of those on the waiting list. It was another sell-out tour and very much appreciated by all who signed up.

Join us for a behind the scenes tour of the Royal Opera House.  One of their expert guides will give us a unique insight into the many secrets and spaces of one of the world's most renowned  theatres.

This 75 minute tour will start at 12.45 and costs £20.  Numbers are limited to only 20 members so we expect this visit to sell out very quickly.

Click here for an application form.  Booking forms will also be available at Trinity Theatre on 21 October.

Kings Cross Walk: Railways, writers and regeneration

Guide: Caroline Piper

Start time: 11.00 am        Duration: 2 hours      Tickets: £15

To download the booking form, please click here.

The area around King’s Cross station has changed out of all recognition in the last 10 years – come and explore the changes and celebrate the wonderful industrial heritage that has been preserved. Our tour starts at Battle Bridge Place, site of a famous Roman battle.  We then head into King’s Cross station with its wonderful Victorian train sheds and modern glazed concourse, beloved to all Harry Potter fans as home to Platform 9¾.

From the utilitarian King’s Cross railway station, we move to flamboyant St Pancras, fronted by the old Midland Hotel, a neo-gothic masterpiece to rival the Houses of Parliament!  We will explore the magnificent architecture of the hotel and station, before walking past the monumental British Library and the cutting-edge research facility, the Francis Crick institute (the “armadillo” building). 

Our walk takes us to a reminder of pre-industrial King’s Cross in a historic church and its spacious gardens.  This now peaceful spot was churned up by the 19th century railway builders, but today the graveyard provides a reminder of the rural past and curious links to famous writers and architects!

The Victorian railways transformed the King’s Cross area, but recent decades have seen another reinvention of similar ambition.  We will explore the heart of the King’s Cross regeneration, which has taken a semi-derelict industrial area and turned it into sought after homes, HQs for big corporations and universities, elegant squares and interesting parks, all while preserving the heritage of canals, railways, coal drops and gas holders. 

More information about train times and the meeting point will be provided on booking.

Leighton House is an art museum in Holland Park, West London, and the former home of a leading Victorian artist - Frederic, Lord Leighton. It showcases an exceptional collection of Victorian art throughout a unique suite of interiors including a magnificent Arab Hall.

We have arranged a tour starting at midday and which lasts for an hour and a half. Please ensure you arrive 15 minutes before the start of the tour. A light lunch (a selection of baguettes, crisps, tea or coffee) can also be arranged after the tour at a cost of £11.95 per person.

Please note that you will need to make your own way to Leighton House by train and underground/ bus – details will be given nearer the date.

You can also visit nearby Sambourne House if you so wish – however, this visit would be separate from the above tour and you would need to make your own arrangements. Sambourne House was the home of the Punch Cartoonist Edward Lindley Sambourne and provides an example of what was known as an ‘Aesthetic interior’ or ‘House Beautiful’.

For more information and booking details, please click here.

Join us to celebrate the end of our programme year with an elegant afternoon tea at the High Rocks hotel. Guests are welcome! With ample parking and beautiful gardens, the venue is ideal for a summer celebration with your Arts Society friends. Tea will be served at 3.00 pm and the cost is £25 per person. Information and a booking form can be found by clicking here. Please state on the booking form if you can offer, or would like, a lift to the venue. We look forward to seeing you there!

We have arranged a visit to the British Library to see the work of the Conservation Team. There are two one-hour tours - at 11.30 am and 2.30 pm. Please note that there will be a fair amount of walking and standing and that mask wearing is likely to be compulsory.

The conservation team at the British Library cares for the physical collections, which number some 150 million items, from all cultures dating from 3000 BCE to the present day. The collections include a wide array of material types including paper, parchment, photographs, leather, papyrus, wood, textile, ceramic, metal. The work of the conservation experts allows the collection to be used and preserves it for as long as possible. They do this with preventive techniques, hands on treatment of individual items, assessing and preparing items for digitisation, non-destructive scientific analysis and imaging techniques.

See the work of conservation and gain an insight into the techniques used to care for the collections on a ‘behind the scenes' tour of the Conservation studios.

As well as the tour you can also see the other treasures of the library – the world’s most exciting books from the Magna Carta and Shakespeare to Florence Nightingale and Gandhi. You can have coffee or lunch at one of the cafes or restaurants on site or venture outside into the local area.

There are several ways to travel to the Library which include train and /or underground to Kings Cross St Pancras and Euston. You can take a 91 bus from Charing Cross station from the stop immediately opposite the station. Details will be provided at a later date.

Tickets for the tour cost £15 and the booking form can be downloaded by clicking here.

Please join us for a virtual tour of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, led by Sophie Oosterwijk, on Friday, 8th April at 11.00 am. The tour will be held on Zoom and the link will be sent beforehand to all members who have booked a place. The fee is £10 each. The booking form can be downloaded here or you can contact our Visits Secretary, Daphne Darby, at daphnedarby@gmail.com or on 01892 521250.

Here is a synopsis of the tour:

The Rijksmuseum must be the highlight of a visit to Amsterdam for anyone who loves Dutch art. Its collections are world-famous, but while most people will associate the museum with Dutch painting of the Golden Age – notably the work of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Ruisdael and Hals – it contains so much more. Some 8,000 objects out of a collection of approximately one million are on display, varying from medieval and modern art to applied art and historical artefacts. The Rijksprentenkabinet (Print Room) alone houses some 700,000 works on paper. There is also the Cuypers-designed library and a special wing dedicated to Asian art. And yes, it also houses Rembrandt’s Night Watch, although the Rijksmuseum does not actually own the painting: it is on loan.

The building itself is also of great interest. Conceived by the Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers as an elaborate Gesamtkunstwerk full of nationalistic imagery, it was built between 1876 and 1885, but subsequently underwent many changes until the renovation of 2003–13 took the Rijksmuseum ‘back to Cuypers’. This meant restoring the original rich interior décor yet also offering a greater focus on the objects on display. This lecture offers fascinating insights into the Rijksmuseum – its history, building and its varied collections – and explains how some objects came to be there.

The Albert Memorial is one of the great sculptural achievements of the Victorian era.

Barbara Askew will take you on a Virtual Tour of the Memorial from top to bottom using stunning high-definition images that reveal details of the art-work that the human eye could never see on a real-life tour - the sculpture groups representing the Continents and the Industrial Arts, the statues representing the Sciences and the Virtues and, most impressive of all, the 169 figures of the Parnassus Frieze are examined close up.

The events which led to the commissioning of the Albert Memorial and the complications and strife involved in its building and completion are examined as well as how the Memorial embodies the ideals and aspirations of the Victorian Age.

For booking information, please click here.

Barbara Askew has been guiding tours of the Albert Memorial since 1998 when the Memorial’s £11m restoration was completed and she is now the only Blue Badge Tourist Guide accredited by the Royal Parks to guide the Memorial.

As a means of thanking our members for all their support over the last year or so, we are inviting you to join a special one and a half hour guided virtual walking tour of Rome on Wednesday 26 May. This is additional to our programmed events and free of charge.  We would like to extend the invitation to non-members, your neighbours, family and friends too. The more the merrier! We also hope that some relaxation of the rules on meeting others inside by then should make it  possible for some of you without internet, to watch with others who are connected. 

To book

On 20th May, all members with a registered email address will automatically be sent the link for the walk. If you wish to invite family and friends, please send their email addresses to our Membership Secretary, Helen Sanders, as explained in her email of 5th May. The Committee has written separately to members without internet access.

Our guide

Join us for a virtual walk around reformation London, led by Ruth Polling who graduated top of her year as the London Blue Badge Tour Guide of the Year 2014. London born and bred, she has been guiding in London for five years and is an International History graduate from the London School of Economics. Before becoming a guide Ruth worked in London politics for eleven years including working in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In addition to tour guiding, Ruth lectures and runs training courses on London history and politics.

The walk

King Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce broke England away from the Roman Catholic Church and plunged London into 30 years of turmoil changing the religious, social, political and economic life of the city forever. From violent religious debates outside St Paul’s Cathedral to Smithfield, where Protestants were burnt at the stake for their faith, to a Tudor Mansion in a former monastery, this virtual walk will take you to the places and tell you the stories at the very centre of England’s religious transformation.

Timings and booking

The walk will start at 11.00 am and last for an hour. The cost is £10 which is to cover our costs only. Any surplus made will be donated to the Trinity Theatre.

To book, please email Daphne Darby, our Visits Secretary, at daphnedarby@gmail.com and let her know how you intend to pay. Payment by BACS is preferred or you can send your cheque, made payable to "TASRTW", to Daphne. Our bank account details and Daphne's address are shown in the email sent to all members on 5th January. Please note that you must register with Daphne or you will not receive the link which will be sent out two days before the walk. 

With Alexandra Epps

With Diane Bernstein