We welcome back Dr Gillian White who gave us an excellent talk last January on the Elizabethan Country House.
She formerly worked for the National Trust as a Curator / Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall and now works as a freelance lecturer and teacher at Oxford and Leicester.
Tonight her talk is titled “The most dissolute man in London : The 1st Duke of Devonshire and the building of Chatsworth”.
William Cavendish, 4th Earl and 1st Duke of Devonshire, has gone down in history as both the saviour of English liberties and “the most dissolute man in London”. This talk looks at his exciting political life as one of the aristocrats who overthrew James II and brought William of Orange to the throne, and also considers the gambling, womanising, duel fighting side of his story. But Cavendish was also the builder of one of England’s great country mansions, Chatsworth House, and we’ll also look at the architecture and decoration of this great building that took twenty years and two Architects to complete – and was really only done by accident.
Instructions about how to access this Zoom meeting will be sent to your email address (as used for the e-newsletters).
THIS WALK HAS BEEN CANCELLED
Vice-President and former Chairman Roger Sutton will lead a walk on Bredon Hill. Further details will be given on the Society’s monthly bulletin later in the year.