Wentworth Woodhouse, Landscape and Gardens

It's impossible to do justice to such a large site with so many layers of history in a short day, but Patrick and Karen will guide us towards a broad understanding of the landscape development with family history, politics, eye-catching features and distant follies along the way.

We are delighted to have obtained the exclusive use of the recently renovated Camellia House for our start to the morning. The Camellia House was the first building to be restored by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust and its camellias are thought to be among the first introduced into Britain.

This event is for Leeds Art Fund members

Wentworth Woodhouse is a large site so please be prepared for some walking.

LAF members with National Trust membership wanting to visit the House afterwards should bring their cards for a discount on the entry price.

Dr Patrick Eyres is editor and publisher of the New Arcadian Journal, in which artists and writers explore the landscape garden. He has also published in numerous other books and journals, and co-edited Sculpture and The Garden (2006, 2nd edn. 2017). Since the mid-1980s he has been captivated by the Georgian landscapes of the rival Yorkshire Wentworths, Wentworth Castle and Wentworth Woodhouse. Patrick has published and lectured extensively about them. For many years he served on the boards of the Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust, Leeds Art Fund, the Garden History Society and Little Sparta Trust. On behalf of The Gardens Trust, he set up and chaired for the first ten years the annual New Research Symposium in Garden History. He continues to advise on the conservation of Little Sparta.

Karen Lynch is a writer and researcher with a particular interest in the eighteenth century landscape. She has worked extensively on the landscape and family at Harewood House and has published a number of papers on the subject. In 2016 she curated the exhibition Noble Prospects: Capability Brown & the Yorkshire Landscape at the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate, and wrote the accompanying book. Hot on the heels of the Brown celebrations came the bicentenary of the death of Humphry Repton, and with Patrick Eyres she co-authored On The Spot: The Yorkshire Red Books of Humphry Repton, Landscape Gardener in 2018. As her alter ego, The Folly Flâneuse, Karen writes a popular weekly blog about follies and landscape ornament, fulfilling a passion for such buildings that she has had since childhood.

Images:

The Camellia House before restoration.

Main facade, Wentworth Woodhouse.

Chris Broughton's transcription of an estate map, c.1750, gives an idea of the scale of the surrounding areas.

Info: Wentworth Woodhouse's grounds open at 10.00am. Plan to set out from the car park no later than 10.30am, and LAF will meet you at the main House reception, to obtain wristbands for all day access to the gardens before walking together to the Camellia House. The initial walk from the car park to the Camellia House via main Reception will take about 30 minutes.

Also check out other Arts events in Wentworth, Literary Art events in Wentworth, Meetups in Wentworth.