Full details of visits will be sent out by email when the booking opens. All applications will be included in a ballot provided they are submitted prior to the closing deadline for that visit.

Thursday 23 November – St Paul’s Church Covent Garden + backstage tour of the Royal Opera House

Monday 22 January, Wednesday 24 January, Thursday 8 February and 15 February –The Oxford Movement
Alastair Lack will lead a Walking Tour beginning at Oriel College, where Newman, and other Oxford luminaries were all Fellows, with a visit to the chapel and the Newman oratory, followed by the University Church, where Newman was vicar and where John Keble preached the famous sermon that launched the Oxford Movement. Finally, to Keble College, named after the saintly John Keble, with its astonishing chapel and one of the iconic paintings of the nineteenth century, Holman Hunt’s ‘The Light of the World’.

Tuesday 6 March – Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
The museum holds the most important collection of Pre-Raphaelite art anywhere in the world and a guided tour has been arranged. The Pre-Raphaelites, led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, rebelled against conservatism in Victorian painting and changed the face of British art for ever. Highlights include The Blind Girl (John Everett Millais) and The Last of England (Ford Madox Brown).
Other things to see are the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, and a wide-ranging permanent collection.
We will also visit the nearby Cathedral Church of St Philip, a rare and fine example of English Baroque architecture, which contains magnificent stained glass by Burne Jones.

Thursday 5 April – St Paul’s Church Covent Garden + Backstage Tour of the Royal Opera House; repeat visit. Now fully booked.

Wednesday 2 May – Compton Verney and the Ravilious and Co Exhibition
Following on from the lecture at the AGM in September 2017 a guided tour has been arranged to Compton Verney to coincide with Ravilious and Co. This exhibition of the artist and designer Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942) explores the significant relationships and working collaborations between Ravilious and an important group of friends and affiliates. The works on show represent the wide range of media in which the artists worked, from watercolours to woodcuts, lithographic prints, book jackets and illustrations, patterned papers, and wallpaper and fabric design and includes work by Paul and John Nash and Enid Marx.
There will be ample time to explore the permanent collection and enjoy the Capability Brown parkland.
Travel by coach.
Booking opens in March

Tuesday 5 June – Fairford Church and Rodmarton Manor
We start with a guided tour of Fairford Church to see its outstanding late 15th century stained glass, the only complete set of mediaeval narrative glass in England. It is the work of Henry VII’s Master Glass Painter who also glazed the windows of Westminster Abbey’s Lady Chapel. Simon Jenkins gives this church 5 stars.
We then move further into Gloucestershire for a guided tour of Rodmarton Manor. Ernest Barnsley and the Cotswold Group of Craftsmen, who built and furnished the house for Claud and Margaret Biddulph, beginning in 1909, were responsible for the revival of many traditional crafts in the Cotswolds. There will be free time to look round the celebrated Arts & Crafts garden before we set off for home.
Travel by coach.
Booking opens in April
 

Visits 2018 – 2019

Tuesday 9 to Friday 12 October – Great Houses of Norfolk  A 3 night / 4 day tour by coach. Dinner, bed and breakfast at 4* Norwich hotel with visits to Burghley House, Norwich Cathedral, St Peter Mancroft church, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Houghton Hall, Blickling Hall and Holkham Hall.
Booking opens in early March

Sunday 19 to Thursday 23 May 2019 – BUDAPEST – Provisional Notice

Further visits are being planned and synopses will be posted on this website when details are confirmed.