Programme Venue: Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall, 50a Main Street, Woodhouse Eaves, LE12 8RZ. 7:15pm for 7.45pm October meeting please be seated by 7:30 Membership year 2025/6 New Membership year AGM before meeting - please be seated by 7:30 9th October 2025 Mary Harlow Shopping in Ancient Rome The October speaker is a local Historian & Lecturer. Roman shop. Reconstruction Middleton, The Remains of Ancient Rome 1892. Natyss, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 13th November 2025 Julia Musgrave The Bloomsbury Group. The Art of Vanessa Bell Avant-garde painter, designer, decorator, inspired colourist, mother and muse, Vanessa Bell was the warm heart of the Bloomsbury Group, a set who Dorothy Parker once described as “living in squares and loving in triangles”. Navigating the tides of sexual and artistic revolution with tolerance, irreverence and wit she had a central role in the social and aesthetic life of Bloomsbury; alive to their love affairs, romances, passions and pleasures, and refreshingly uninterested in politics. She was the sister of the writer Virginia Woolf, wife of the critic Clive Bell, and counted the painter Roger Fry and the artist Duncan Grant among her lovers. Vanessa Bell (sister of Virginia Woolf). Photo:George Charles Beresford. Public domain 11th December 2025 Sarah Lenton 300 years of Christmas in Covent Garden Christmas spectacles, slapstick, and beanstalks have been drawing crowds to Covent Garden since 1737. John Rich, the first manager of what is now the Royal Opera House, was a fine dancer, mime, and special effects man and he (and his successors) developed all the well known features of the London Christmas season. Even now principal boys, fairies, and Harlequin are alive and well on the ROH stage. This lecture pulls together the whole performing tradition and brings it up to date with the latest Christmas offerings at the Royal Opera House. Royal Opera House, Gzen92, Creative Commons There is no lecture in January as the weather can make travel difficult. Thursday 12th February 2026 Simon Seligman Debo Mitford Cavendish - Duchess & Housewife. Deborah Devonshire, the youngest of the Mitford sisters and wife of the 11th Duke of Devonshire, was hefted by marriage to one of Europe’s greatest treasure houses, Chatsworth. In the second half of the 20th century, in partnership with her husband, she imbued it with a spirit, elegance and sense of welcome that transformed it from being the worn-out survivor of decades of taxation, war and social change into one of the best-loved, most- emulated and popular historic houses, gardens and estates in the country. Deborah Mitford, William Acton Public domain Thursday 12th March 2026 Sophie Matthews Music in Art. So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted. Sophie Matthews Thursday 9th April 2026 Bertie Pearce Now you see it Now you don't. This is one of the quirkiest lectures you will ever hear. There is a universal delight in being deceived and in this lecture Bertie Pearce takes his audience on a whistle stop tour of art which fools, surprises and amuses the viewer. Beginning and ending with the Belgian surrealist, René Magritte, it encompasses Trompe L’eoil, Banksy, Bridget Riley, Arcimboldo and Escher to name a few. Hold on to your seats and get ready to be visually fried. Geometric Model of M.C. Escher's stellated dodecahedron. This is a model of M.C. Escher stellated dodecahedron found in his lithograph entitled 'Gravitation' that can be constructed with pentagons from a net. BPCarpenter Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Thursday 14th May 2026 Justin Reay 'Painters of Light' Caravaggio to Hockney Details later Thursday 11th June 2026 Lucretia Walker 'The Powder & The Glory' Helena Rubenstein Cosmetics There are no ugly women, only lazy ones, quipped cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein, whose company made her one of the world's richest women. Business woman, art collector, and philanthropist, she was the first female millionaire. She commissioned work from avant-garde artists, Joan Miró, Picasso, Salvador Dali who was to design a powder compact for her. Her exclusive beauty salons influenced and blurred the conceptual boundaries between fashion, art galleries, and the domestic interior. Helena Rubinstein, from a 1921 publication. Print by Paul César Helleu. E.V. Brewster Publications Inc. Public domain