In April, many of our members spent a wonderful day at Chenies Manor House & Garden in Rickmansworth, during their annual Tulip festival. The weather was glorious and the flowers certainly didn’t disappoint.

Chenies is one of England’s finest Tudor House & Gardens. A Grade 1 building, it has a rich and interesting history, with links to royalty over an 800-year timeline.

Since 1165 it has been home to just three main families – the Cheyne, Russell and Macleod-Matthews.  John Russell was a loyal servant to among others, Henry VIII and became the 1st Earl of Bedford. In the 1500s Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I visited Chenies, and in 1570 Elizabeth held her privy council meeting there during her month-long stay.

The Macleod-Matthews family restored and brought Chenies back to life in the late 1950s and it remains in the family today, passed down to Charles and his wife Boo, who continue its story.

We were privileged to have been welcomed by Charles Macleod-Matthews who gave us a fascinating history and introduction to the Manor, its grounds and restoration. Our guided tour followed, taking in sumptuous antique furniture, tapestries and highlights of many rooms including the Long room, Dining room, White drawing room, Green bedroom, Stone Parlour, Billiards room and Nursery.

After our tour we enjoyed visiting the Chapel, and the gardens where our senses feasted on the Tulip displays with stunning varieties such as Orange Princess, Black Hero, Muriel, Purple Heart and Negrita. Through the main displays we then found our way into the Herbal & Medicinal Gardens and Stumpery.

Our time at Chenies ended with a well-earned cuppa and delicious homemade cakes.

Thanks to our knowledgeable guides, Charles Macleod-Matthews and everyone at Chenies for a marvellous visit to a truly beautiful House.     

We visited the Supreme Court in July 2024, The Stanley Spencer Gallery at Cookham in October 2024 and The College of Arms in February 2025.

On 10 September 2025 we visited the Henry Moore Foundation at Hoglands. It was much enjoyed by all.

On 22 April 2026, we visited Chenies Manor in Hertfordshire.

We are moving our main communication system to Mailchimp. This is becoming active over the next few weeks. It will enable us to produce and send emails more easily. It will help us to comply with all aspects of data protection requirements. 

It will help us to target information and seek feedback from our members and friends.

NEW MEMBERSHIP OFFER  -  FORMS AVAILABLE IN DOCUMENTS DROP DOWN

We have just introduced a new membership offer. Details are set out below.

The Arts Society Ealing membership year runs from 1 November to 31 October. Our annual subscription is £45 per person and there is a £12 joining fee for new members. 

If you join now, pay your £12 joining fee by bank transfer or at a lecture by cash or card and set up a Standing Order for £45 to take effect on 1 November 2024, you will be able to attend the September and October lectures free of charge without paying the £8 visitor fee. You would receive 14 months for the price of 12 months or 12 lectures for the price of 10 lectures.

The application and our Standing Order mandate form are available from the documents drop down on this website.  The application form should be sent to Romola Boorman by email or post (details on the form) and the SO mandate sent by you to your bank or completed electronically. Your membership would take effect from when we receive your £12 joining fee. 

 Payment should be made to:

The Arts Society Ealing

Sort code: 40-02-26

Account no: 21537253

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us via our website.

OUR NEW FACEBOOK PAGE

We have recently launched our own Facebook “page.”  It’s very much in its infancy, and we’re learning as we go, but to help grow our visibility on Facebook, we need your help.

So, whether you’re already active on Facebook, dabble and dip in to it occasionally, or you’ve never looked at it at all, please just go to our site via this link: https://www.facebook.com/theartssocietyealing

Once you’re there, have a look at one of our posts and if you like it, please click on the little thumbs up symbol below the post, and even better, if you’re already on Facebook, please “follow” us to keep up to date with what we’re doing. Just click onto the 3 dots as shown below here in red and press Follow.

Members arrived bright and early for our fascinating guided tour around the Palace of Westminster. The tour was so interesting and our guide was excellent. Shwas so knowledgeable and passionate. We had a fascinating private meeting with one of our local MPs who facilitated the whole event for us.

Some feedback from a few of our members who attended:

'Just to say ..... thank you so much for organsing our tour  this morning. It was definitely worth getting up early for! The guide was brilliant and I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. We went to the public gallery afterwards which was interesting. It was os good to meet up and chat with other Society members' .

'Thank you for organising such a very interesting and enjoyable visit to the Houses of Parliament. The guide was excellent and watching from the public gallery in the House of Commons made today very memorable'.

An excellent guide gave us a wonderful 'Nooks & Crannies' tour of West Horsley Place.  This fascinating Tudor House, with a much later façade, retains may original features of the timer framed house and is currently being conserved to look much as it did in the mid1900s. Afterwards we were able to walk in the lovely garden, now home to the Grange Park Opera, set in beautiful Surrey countryside. 

West Horsley Place is also the setting of the BBC series 'Ghosts' and may be better known as Button House. There is model of the house fitted out as seen in 'Ghosts' inside the house.

THIS IS A SPECIAL EXTRA LECTURE THAT TIES IN WITH THE EXHIBITION AT TATE BRITAIN.

ALL MEMBERS WILL AUTOMATICALLY RECEIVE THE ACCESS LINK IN ADVANCE. 

Time:          1000 for 1030 – 1315

Venue:       St Barnabas Church Hall, Pitshanger Lane, Ealing W5 1QG

                      (free on-street parking, or E2/E9 bus close by)         

Lecturer:   Carole Petipher          

Cost:           £25 includes two 1-hour lectures with coffee, tea & biscuits

Contact:     Susan Parsons – spsecretarytase@gmail.com for tickets and further details

This wonderful river in France was a great influence on the 19th century French artists and key to the development of Impressionism. It was the estuary and the many established artists already working there that first attracted a new wave of artists; then a tiny loop of the river west of Paris became their home, and has since been known as the Cradle of Impressionism.

Carole’s two lectures will follow the course of the river from the Estuary.  In lecture 1 she will focus on those who influenced the radical new wave of painters and in lecture 2 she will focus on the founder members of the Group later to be known as the Impressionists.

Carole has been a guide for 20 years in France leading tours specialising in art and history. She has lived and worked on a number of converted barges and bespoke river vessels on the Seine and Paris Basin and confesses that the Seine very much flows through her veins.

Guests and friends are especially welcome to join us.  The event is expected to finish by 1315. There are lots of places to go for lunch afterwards.

Membership renewal is £45.00 due on 1 November 2022. 

Payable to:

Sort Code 40-02-26

Account Number 21537253

Our programme for 2023 is set out under the Lectures drop down on the Home Page.

Our lecture on 23 November is about Frans Hals. This coincides with the major exhition at the National Gallery.

Please find details under VISITS on this website.

OUR AGM WILL BE HELD IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE LECTURE. IT WILL START PROMPTLY AT 7.15PM. MEMBERS ARE INVITED TO ARRIVE BY 7.00 PM AT THE LATEST TO ENSURE THE MEETING RUNS TO TIME. 

The Greater London Area web-site is now situated within the national Arts Society web-site. You can see all our events and news there, as well as some events from other areas and societies.  Please use this link to access this new website.

 http://theartssociety.org/greater-london-area .

Non-members are welcome to attend our lectures for a payment of £8 per lecture payable in advance. Please email  spsecretarytase@gmail.com  in good time to make your bank transfer payment and receive joining instructions. We no longer accept cheques for payment. Non-members can pay by cash on the evening of the lecture.

Dear members, friends and art lovers.

If you wish to contact us please email directly to aektase1@gmail.com

Chair, The Arts Society Ealing

The Society is planning to have 2 additional lectures in July and August 2021. Please see the details in our lectures drop down.

We are delighted to offer our first virtual tour, free to members as part of their membership.

On Thursday, 28 January at 1600 hours, Katie Wignall, Blue Badge Tourist Guide and Founder of Look Up London, will lead a virtual tour entitled Soho's Soul.  With so much passion, talent and history crammed into so small an area, on this virtual tour we'll be taking a closer look at Soho through time, revealing its dirty secrets, inspiring social history and colourful communities.

One of our members has had 3 self portrait paintings selected for this online exhibition. Please go to www.ingdeexhibition.org.uk to view. 

The exhibition is open until 31 December 2020.

• Our programme of Zoom Lectures got off to a flying start with Charlie Forman's fascinating tour round the world of John Nash's London in "How the Wild (West) End was Won
• Go to the lectures page to find details of upcoming lectures!
• We have provisionally booked a Study Day on 'The Changing Face of London' for Spring 2021

                                    When on March 16th, we had to cancel our lecture at UWL, no one in their right mind (and yes that does include members of the committee) would have thought that we would still be living in a socially distanced world, elbow pumping and wearing masks in mid August -yet here we are. Trying to second guess when or if Covid will become manageable has been right up there with tying knots in water. However, undaunted, the Chairman has come up with…

A Cunning Plan

• Events 

When we are able to meet again, we will try to organise an extra event for every event we have had to cancel with the intention of catching up with event/trip provision within 18 months of resuming our full programme

• Lectures  

Similarly for lectures , we will endeavour to add in extra lectures for every lecture cancelled. This may well mean we do not take a break over the summer in 2021provided UWL can accommodate us. In addition our Lecture Co ordinator, Vivien Dymock has agreed to become Zoom Meister as we investigate the possibility of possibly providing a “hybrid” lecture whereby a limited ticketed number of people could attend UWL while others watch from home

• Study Day

We are actively pursuing setting one up  in Spring 2021 -watch this space! 

In the meantime stay artistically cool!

Frances Gumley-Mason

Deputy Chair

PS Thought from our Chairman - Do you want to release your inner Hokusai? If so click on https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/art-coloring-book/1QGsh6vSfAQBgQ

PPS I think most of his best stuff was done by his daughter - have a look at https://blog.britishmuseum.org/hokusai-and-oi-keeping-it-in-the-family/

Finally some really positive news! Planet University of West London may well be returning to a solar system near you this autumn in time for our September 21st lecture on Art and Architecture in docklands. Of course all this will be subject to change if pesky old Covid starts playing up again and even if it does not the lecture will be run strictly in accordance with whatever advice is prevailing at the time. The well being of our members remains of paramount importance. In the meantime there are plenty of free activities to divert us all...for instance

• This Tuesday find out all there is to know about the Bayeux Tapestry thanks to our friends in Richmond. Join their zoom lecture at 4.45pm for 5pm at https://theartssociety-org.zoom.us/j/99616596763   Meeting ID: 996 1659 6763 No password needed.
• Explore Aboriginal Art in "Recording the Dreamtime" with Rebecca Hossack at http://connected.the artssociety.org and while you are there take advantage of all the many other ideas on offer.
• Time travel to 19th century St Kilda and an Icelandic longhouse thanks to the 360 degree reconstructions at www.openvirtualworlds.org
• Does life seem it little back to front at the moment? Journey down the original rabbit hole with 150 years of Alice in Wonderland at http://explore.bl.uk
• Visit the BP Portrait award in a virtual gallery space complete with a guiding commentary from chief curator Alison Smith at https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/bp-portrait-award-2020/virtual-exhibition
• Don't forget St Mary's Perivale and its super live concerts from July7th onwards st-marys-perivale.org.uk and catch up on any you might have missed via YouTube
• Connect with Young Rembrandt at the Ashmolean Museum at https://www.ashmolean.org/youngrembrandt
• Stretch your legs in Richmond Park or if it is too wild and windy take a virtual tour of the Isabella Plantation on YouTube
• Become a literally beautiful writer with free calligraphy practice sheets from thepostmansknock.com

We are hoping to hold our postponed AGM in October. Details to follow when the situation is clearer. In the meantime the committee has done some hat swopping. Anne King (formerly Deputy Chair) is becoming Treasurer replacing Andrew Gumley-Mason who is stepping down from the committee. Vivian Dymock (volunteer coordinator) is taking over the Lecture portfolio from Margeret Borton who is also stepping down. Frances Gumley-Mason (me - formerly transport tzar) is taking over as Deputy from Anne. Everyone else is the same. There have been no additions to the committee. All changes will be formalised at the AGM

Stay safe and culturally alert!