TrustNews Mar 22
Members' Visits 2022
Details of this year's programme
We are pleased to report that we will be reorganising the two members' visits (to Greenwich and painted churches in Hampshire and West Sussex) that were postponed in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid-1 9 restrictions. Those members who had booked and paid for these visits will be given priority, although there will be an increase in the cost of the trips.
Greenwich - The Old Royal Naval College and The Queen's House - June 2022
This visit has been provisionally arranged for Wednesday 15 June and will feature a guided tour of the Old Royal Naval College designed by Sir Christopher Wren as a Seamen's Hospital, and the Painted Hall by Sir James Thornhill which has been recently restored.
After lunch (not included in the price at this stage), we shall move on to the contrasting delights of the Queen's House, the first classical building in Britain designed by lnigo Jones. The guided tour of this building will include its extensive art collection.
This is likely to be an expensive trip by coach as ULEZ (the Ultra Low Emissions Zone) has made coach travel to London more costly and both venues have strictly limited numbers. Members should anticipate a cost of approximately 75-80 pound plus lunch.
Alternatively, it might be slightly cheaper and more interesting if members were to make their own way to Waterloo by train and then take a return Thames Clipper boat to Greenwich - but this would involve more walking to and from the river piers. Members are asked to register an interest in this trip and to express a preference as to coach or train/river travel by 15 April by emailing Tessa at secretary@cityofwinchestertrust.co.uk
West Horsley Place and the Theatre in the Woods, West Horsley, Surrey – September 2022
West Horsley Place is a dilapidated medieval mansion which the late Bamber Gascoigne unexpectedly inherited from his aunt, the Duchess of Roxburghe, in 2014. He donated the estate and the proceeds of the sale of its contents to a charitable trust, which is undertaking its restoration. We would have a private tour of the house and gardens followed by a sandwich lunch.
Many members will know that Grange Park Opera upped sticks and left Grange Park a few years ago. Wasfi Kani and the trustees then persuaded Bamber Gascoigne and his wife to let them build a new opera house in the woods at West Horsley Place. We will have a tour of the new opera house, which is modelled on La Scala Milan.
Again, coach travel and a ceiling on numbers is likely to make this an expensive trip - approximately 75 pound per head. Expressions of interest to Tessa by 30 April please.
Painted churches of Hampshire and West Sussex
We are hoping to reschedule this postponed visit for July. Further details will be available shortly, but expressions of interest to Tessa by the end of March would be appreciated. Lambeth Palace Garden and the Garden Museum We had been hoping to arrange a tour of Lambeth Palace sometime this year but are told that they no longer permit this, and when the Palace has occasional Open Days, visitors are admitted on a "first come, first served basis". The gardens are, however, normally open to the public on the first Friday of every month, and a visit there could be combined with a visit to the Garden Museum next door (gardenmuseum.org.uk).
This does not warrant organising a formal Trust visit, but members might like to make the trip under their own steam during the summer months.