Charlecote Park
LECTURE PROGRAMME AUTUMN 2025
Non-members are welcome to attend the lectures - Admission Charge:
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RNTA Members £2.00*
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Non-members £3.00*
*Admission charge includes refreshments
Thursday 2nd October 2025 2.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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Sulgrave Manor and the Washington Family Speaker: Martin Sirot-Smith
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Martin Sirot-Smith will outline the history of the Washington family in Britain. After describing the origins of the family in the north of England in 1183, he will tell how Lawrence Washington came to build Sulgrave Manor in 1539, and how his great, great grandson Colonel John Washington, was to emigrate to Virginia in 1656.This began the American line of the family that was to produce George Washington, the first President of the USA, three generations later.
He will also talk about the village of Sulgrave, and the Manor House itself with its lovely setting and the treasures to be seen in it.
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Wednesday 15th October 2025 7.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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Morris to Mackintosh - From Arts and Crafts to Modernism Speaker: Rob Kendall
A visit to 78, Derngate, Northampton makes clear how this town house designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a precursor of Modernist design and decor in the 20th century. But as Rob Kendall, from the Friends of 78, Derngate will describe, Mackintosh’s artistic roots lay in the Arts and Crafts movement spear-headed by William Morris in the later 19th century. Rob will trace the history of how that development in artistic and architectural design came about, leading to the remarkable and forward-looking work of Mackintosh.
Thursday 6th November 2025 2.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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Death in the Garden Speaker: Michael Brown
Over the centuries poisonous plants have been used to remove any unwanted partner or rival, as aphrodisiacs, for pest control and the means to foretell the future or speak with the gods. Learn about the mysterious mandrake and how a pot of basil helped to conceal a savage murder, until.....
Be warned, many of these plants may well be growing in your garden! This popular talk appeals equally to gardeners and non-gardeners.
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Wednesday 19th November 2025 7.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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Rugby's Early Photographers Speaker: John Frearson
Unfortunately the scheduled speaker is unable to present the talk on Japan, due to ill health.
John Frearson has kindly stepped in to speak to us about the Early Photographers of Rugby.
Some thirty photographers worked in Rugby in the Victorian and early Edwardian period. Those in the 1840s to 1860s were small scale and only worked for a short while, but from the 1870s some became well established.
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Thursday 4th December 2025 2.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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Tales from a Dairy Farmer's Wife Speaker: Jane Barnes
Jane Barnes will give a highly entertaining and educational talk about her life on their family farm in High Leicestershire with cows for Stilton Cheese production, filled with lots of humorous stories and real-life anecdotes. She will also bring some Stilton cheese for sale after the talk (both cash and cards accepted!).
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Thursday 15th January 2026 2.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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RNTA Annual General Meeting
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Followed by........
The Loughborough Bell Foundry Speaker: Mark Temple
Taylor’s of Loughborough is the world’s largest working bell foundry. The business originated in the 14th century, and the Taylor family took it over in 1784. The company manufactures bells for use in clock towers, rings of bells for change ringing, chimes and carillons. It is a Victorian purpose-built factory still working for its original manufacture, a rarity these days, with a campanile still pealing out as busily as ever.
Mark Temple will recount the history of this remarkable company, including how it went into administration in 2009, but was then very successfully re-financed and re-established. It also has a museum of bells and bell-founding.
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Thursday 5th February 2026 2.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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The English and Gardening Speaker: Danny Wells
Danny will present a social history of an English obsession and explore the development of gardening and the meanings and symbolism invested in gardens. The focus is on Georgian and Victorian England and the first half of the 20th century.
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Wednesday 18th February 2026 7.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
Judge, Jury, Judgment and.....Justice Speaker: Alan Cutler
This is an interactive presentation: involvement is the key to audience appreciation – and everyone loves a meaty murder mystery! On these bases, Alan Cutler, retired writer, trainer and professional speaker, has designed a series of presentations in which he plays the part of the judge and prosecution and defence counsels in a real-life Victorian murder trial, and where the audience are the jury – deciding the fate of the accused. In today’s case, will you free a guilty murderer or send an innocent person to the gallows?
Did your verdict accord with the actual jury of over a 100 years ago? Was justice served?
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Thursday 5th March 2026 2.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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Gardens and/et Jardins Speaker: Keith Holmes
Once again, our Association has been chosen by Keith for the premiere of a new talk. As it is still a work in progress, all we know is that it’s about gardens in England and France. Some are well-known and others may surprise you; all will be revealed with Keith’s spectacular pictures on the day.
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Wednesday 18th March 2026 7.30pm Dunchurch Village Hall
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The Arts and Crafts Movement and Stoneywell Cottage Speaker: Rowan Roenisch
A fundamental ideal of the Arts and Crafts movement in architecture was that a building should employ local materials and blend into its site, as if organically. Stoneywell Cottage in Leicestershire can claim to be the finest of all these attempts to blend a man-made structure with nature. Its design is anchored by a massive chimney which projects like an emerging outcrop of rock into the air, echoing the similar outcrops of ancient rocks around it in the Charnwood Forest landscape. From this, the house falls in three levels, its plan twisting with the shape of the site in total harmony with it.
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It is Ernest Gimson’s finest achievement, and its interior also shows Arts and Crafts principles with Gimson’s furniture and design - honesty and truth to materials.
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Rowan’s talk will take us through all this and much more about this Arts and Crafts masterpiece.
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