GHS AGMs & Annual Conference 2015

PLEASE CONTACT THE GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY TO BE ADDED TO THE WAITING LIST FOR EVENT. Thank you.

Provisional programme

A fuller and more explicit version will be posted on our website from March.

NB. Car Registration information is required for all cars parked at the University so please submit this information to Anne Richards on: anner@knoll12.plus.com

Thursday 23 July (optional extra)

Leave Newcastle University ‘s Castle Leazes Halls of Residence (CLHR) at 2pm by coach to Seaton Delaval. The Baroque house by Vanbrugh dates from 1719–1730 and the garden is a 20th century creation. Those arriving by car are to meet the coach at the car park of Seaton Delaval at 2.30.

Depart Seaton Delaval for Northumberlandia, the recently completed land sculpture of gigantic proportions fashioned out of soil and clay from a local surface mine. Arrive back at CLHR at 6.30.

If you are a National Trust member, please bring your card with you.

Supper on campus.

Friday 24 July

After breakfast at CLHR, the venue for the day is the University’s Conference Centre, about 10 to15 minutes walk from CLHR, towards the city centre where the University’s administrative buildings are grouped.

Our 5th Graduate Symposium will be held in the morning. After lunch a talk from Fiona Green, Chair of Northumbria Gardens Trust, who will discuss the gardens we are to visit.

AGMs of GHS and AGT to take place followed by business meetings. Those not involved will be taken on a guided walk around Leazes Park, 10 minutes walk from Conference Centre and on the way back to CLHR.

The conference dinner will take place at The Biscuit Factory, now a contemporary art gallery with dining facilities for private functions. From there is an easy walk to the Newcastle quayside to appreciate the nocturnally illuminated iconic urban landscape where Newcastle faces Gateshead across the Tyne. Coach transport there and back.

Saturday 25 July

Depart for privately owned Croxdale Hall, south of Durham City. A late-C18th walled garden with lakes was designed by Lewis Kennedy. The house is set in an early to mid-C18th parkland. The owner will be one of our guides.

We then travel further south to Sedgefield to have lunch at Hardwick Hall Hotel. We then walk into Hardwick Hall landscaped garden, laid out by James Paine in mid-C18th who created ornamental buildings, ruins, lakes and woodland, to be experienced on a circuit walk set around two artificial lakes. The landscape has been refurbished with HLF funding. Our chief guide will be Tony Smith who, as Head of Countryside for Durham County Council, was intimately involved with the entire process of restoration.

Returning northwards we visit the City of Durham. Martin Roberts, retired Historic Buildings Inspector English Heritage North East, will be our main guide around several small gardens dating from the C17th and C18th within the city. We shall also enter the Cathedral and eat at The Undercroft Restaurant where Parks & Gardens UK invite us to a drinks reception to celebrate their 10th anniversary.

Sunday 26 July

Depart am for Alnwick. On arrival at the Alnwick Garden, we shall be addressed by Ian August, Garden Liaison Director, in The Pavilion, who will explain the garden’s philosophy. Then half the group will stay in the garden to enjoy it at their own pace and the other half will go by coach into Hulne Park and visit Hulne Priory, where Robert Adam and Capability Brown were employed. The two groups will then exchange venues so that everyone has the opportunity of seeing two aspects of the Alnwick Estate.

Picnic lunch either in the open or in the coach depending upon the time.Drive to Belsay Hall, Castle and Grounds, now in the care of English Heritage. The early C19th Greek Revival purist building is complemented by its picturesque quarry garden, which leads to the remains of the mainly C17th and C18th castle with C14th tower.

Belsay is a very short distance from Newcastle Airport and under an hour from Newcastle Central Station. We aim to arrive there at 5.30pm to allow travellers to catch 17.50 to London or 17.47 to Edinburgh (assuming the summer timetable remains the same as the winter timetable.

If you are a member of English Heritage, please bring your card with you