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From the Chairman:

This Newsletter has with it the papers for this year’s Annual General Meeting which will be at Eastbury House, Barking, on Tuesday 22 June. Although somewhat marooned in a housing estate Eastbury is one of London’s finest small country houses, an Elizabethan gem, now owned by the National Trust and run by the London Borough of Barking. A 3-phase programme of renovations has just been completed. We shall be able to see the house and its walled garden as well as conduct our usual business and enjoy a light buffet. And on 3 July we shall have our summer party at 5 St Regis Close, Muswell Hill, an artist’s private garden opened on occasions for the National Gardens Scheme and renowned for its plantsmanship and cakes. I hope to see many of you at these important events in the Society’s calendar.

22 June is also the date of the SAVE Britain’s Heritage Annual Book Fair at the Gallery at 77 Cowcross Street, Smithfield. The timings are such (the fair opens at 12 noon) that a visit can be easily combined with our AGM. The Society will have a stall at which some of the duplicates from our library will be on offer, and there are many other organisations in the architecture and conservation world with a wide range of publications on offer.

And June also has the annual delight of the London Open Squares weekend when many private garden squares are made accessible. The days are 12 and 13 June. New entries to this year’s list which took my eye are the Naturewise Edible Forest Garden at the Margaret MacMillan School in Crouch End and Anouska Hempel’s Zen Garden at the Hempel Hotel in Craven Hill Gardens. Full details of all the gardens participating in the scheme can be found on the scheme’s website, www.opensquares.org.

A week after this the London Festival of Architecture begins, with events spreading over a fortnight. You can find the programme on the festival’s website at www.LFA2010.org. This year’s themes are very community oriented, many of them on the theme of Love Your Street which will seek to show how everyone can contribute to modest local improvement. The festival also has many events for cyclists and, with an eye to 2012, a celebration of the route from Aldgate to Stratford which will be the last stretch of the 2012 marathon race.

A major exhibition at The V&A Museum is celebrating Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, one of the most remarkable of London’s houses, now nearing the completion of a major restoration programme which has thrown much new light on the building. The exhibition is a mouth-watering taster for what will be a major landmark in the house’s history when it is re-opened in September, on the anniversary of Horace Walpole’s birth. Just opened after restoration is Leighton House Museum in Kensington. The reopening is celebrated with a special exhibition which returns to the house Lord Leighton’s own collection of paintings which were dispersed in 1896. For a short time at least it will be possible to appreciate the house with the paintings which Leighton collected in the positions he chose for them.

One evening event which may be of interest is A Tudor Body in Georgian Clothes: Unveiling the Secrets of St Margaret’s Tower – an Evening of Words and Music which is taking place at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey at 7pm on 26 May. This is being organised by the Church and all proceeds go to the St Margaret’s Church Appeal. To quote from the event flyer “The tower of St Margaret’s Church at Westminster Abbey has a mystery. At first sight this early Georgian building seems unremarkable. However something much older is hidden inside it. Professor Warwick Rodwell, Consultant Archaeologist to Westminster Abbey, unveils the secrets of St Margaret’s tower. His lecture will be complemented by music from both the Tudor and Georgian periods performed by the soprano Cecilia Osmond with Robert Quinney, Sub-Organist of the Abbey, on harpsichord.” Tickets cost £15 and can be purchased online from the website www.westminster-abbey.org/shop or from the Westminster Abbey Shop and Chapter House in Dean’s Yard.

Congratulations to Dr and Mrs I Ansell and Mr and Mrs R Simmons who were successful in our ballot for members to represent the Society at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party this year. We hope that the weather is kind to them and that they enjoy this special experience.

Finally, thanks to all who have renewed their subscription at the new rate and we look forward to hearing from those who have not yet paid.

With best wishes,
Frank Kelsall