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Organiser: Barbara Peacock MA, FRSA
WFASC, Church Cottage, Beauworth, Alresford
© WFASC 2023
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Organiser: Barbara Peacock MA, FRSA
WFASC, Church Cottage, Beauworth, Alresford
© WFASC 2023
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Barbara Peacock MA FRSA establised Wessex Fine Art Study Courses in 1982 since when she has led numerous very successful tours throughout Britain and Europe. Her aim is to provide a programme appealing to anyone wishing to develop their knowledge in these areas, either simply out of interest or for professional reasons.
A short summary of the last six tours is shown below with a 'heritage' list to the right. Select a photograph below to see more. Close the pop-up window by clicking on it. |
2023: Country Houses & Gardens of Dorset |
2022:From Tower House to Country House: North-East Scotland |
2021: The Country Houses of Northants 1550-1950 |
2019: Vienna and the Spectacular Architecture of the Danube |
2018: Great Houses and Gardens of Ireland |
2017: Art and Architecture of Bohemia 1200-1914 from Gothic to Cubist |
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Heritage Trail
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| 2023 Norfolk |
| 2023 Dorset |
| 2022 North-East Scotland |
| 2021 Portugal |
| 2021 Northamptonshire |
| 2019 Vienna & Danube |
| 2018 Ireland |
| 2017 Bohemia |
| 2015 SW Scotland |
| 2014 Prussia |
| 2013 Malvern Country |
| 2013 Brussels |
| 2012 Staffordshire |
| 2011 Czech Republic |
| 2011 Bristol |
| 2009 Malta |
| Potsdam |
| Liverpool and the Wirral |
| N & W Ridings Yorkshire |
| Norfolk |
| Scotland |
| English Art 1770-1830 |
| North Wales |
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2023: Country Houses
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Gardens of Dorset
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This seven-day tour of Dorset focused on private houses, many with outstanding gardens: Fiddleford Manor (c.1380 mediaeval manor house) ~ Mapperton Hall ~ Wolfeton Hall (Tudor with Renaissance interiors) ~ Lulworth Castle (Jacobean hunting lodge) ~ Forde Abbey (Commonwealth period) ~ St Giles, Wimborne (early classical house (c.1650) ~ Creech Grange (18th century interiors) ~ Smedmore House (17-18C interior) ~ Milton Abbey (15C Abbots’s Hall & 18C interiors) ~ Milton Abbas (18C thatched village)~ Kingston Lacy (Restoration house (1663-5) and 19C with magnificent coillection of paintings
) ~ Minterne (1904-6, Arts and Crafts).
Important gardens included: Mapperton Italianate Edwardian gardens; Forde Abbey; the Georgian landscape of St Giles; Kingston Lacy Victorian gardens; Minterne Himalayan gardens; Shute House 20C gardens. Milton Abbey and Lulworth Castle are set in magnificent ‘Capability’ Brown parks. Click to close |
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2022:From Tower House
to Country House: North-East Scotland
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A 6-day tour in Aberdeenshire and Moray, an unspoilt part of Scotland. At Crathes, Craigievar, Fyvie and Monymusk participants explored 16C romantic, turreted tower houses (rich Renaissance plasterwork and painted ceilings). The tower theme continued into the early 18C with Duff House (William Adam’s Baroque), revived in the 19C baronial mansions Kincausie House and Castle Forbes.
David Jones, furniture historian, explained Scottish furniture, an important tour theme. At Kemnay House original 18th-century furniture bills and receipts were displayed.
Fyvie Castle (Raeburns, Old Masters paintings). Historic gardens or landscapes included Crathes (Edwardian garden) and Castle Forbes (18C landscape park).
Private houses added to the programme, some in the same family since the Middle Ages. A highlight was our final visit to Kingcausie House, the home of Henry Irvine-Fortescue, 16th laird of Kingcausie, who, in full tartan, provided a magnificent tea.
Pittodrie House Hotel**** made a perfect base for the tour.
Vikki Duncan MA, MLitt, of the Scottish National Trust curator provided invaluable assistance and important insights into the National Trust collections.
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2021: The Country Houses of Northants 1550-1950
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A six-day tour with privileged private visits to homes of the families who built them, and which have survived little changed over the last 250 years. This presented a great opportunity to study in private visits the houses, furnishings, collections, manorial churches, gardens and landscape settings plus the work of some of the most remarkable architects, designers and craftsmen of the age.
Visits were private included Elizabethan Deene Park (Tudor), Burghley House (c.1556-80), Kirby Hall (Renaissance 1570-); the classical Stoke Park pavilions (possibly by Inigo Jones, 1629-35); the serene Italianate villa of Lamport Hall (1654, John Webb), and Stanford Hall (William & Mary), ancestral home of the Cave family since 1480, rebuilt 1697-170l.
The magnificent Baroque interiors of Burghley with their painted ceilings and magnificent furnishings remain almost unchanged since the 1700s. We also visited Queen AnneCottesbrooke Hall (1702-13); Kelmarsh Hall (Georgian, and 20C Nancy Lancaster interiors). whilst 78 Derngate in Northampton is a rare example of a Charles Rennie Mackintosh interior (early C20).
Important gardens included: Kirby Hall (Elizabethan); Canons Ashby (C18 formal garden); Boughton (early 18C).
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2019: Vienna and the Spectacular Architecture of the Danube
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The nine day tour to Vienna, a city with an incomparable array of Baroque buildings, palaces and fine churches. Highlights were the Belvedere Palace (Lukas von Hildebrandt, 1714-22) and the Karlskirche (Fischer von Erlach, 1716-39). The city played a crucially important part in the Secessionist movement in late 19th century, with the famous Secession Building (1897) and the work of pioneer architects (Adolf Loos, Otto Wagner), whilst the contribution of the famous Wiener Werkstätte was represented in the Museum of Applied Arts.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Old Master paintings) was a breathtaking array of treasures collected by the Habsburg princes. The Imperial Treasury displayed ancient insignia and jewels of the Holy Roman Empire.
Outside the city the magnificent Habsburg palace of Schönbrunn (Baroque gardens), and the lesser-known romantic neo-Gothic island castle of Franzenburg, a favourite retreat of the last emperor, Franz Joseph.
Religious buildings included the beautiful Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, whilst the great Abbey of Melk, towering above the Danube, encapsulated the glories of the Baroque.
The celebrated Café Central coffee house, once the resort of Stalin, Trotsky and Hitler, was enjoyed as was local wine and fare in a typical Viennese tavern in the Vienna woods. Finally, a boat ride down the Danube brought this exciting and stimulating tour to a close.
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2018: Great Houses and Gardens of Ireland
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The tour featured some of the finest houses and gardens of Ireland on both sides of the border, including privileged access to many privately owned. Charming 17C Beaulieu Manor is one of the earliest unfortified Irish houses, and still lived in by the 11th generation of the Tichborne family who built it. Early Georgian Florence Court, Carton House, and Russborough displayed magnificent Baroque plasterwork. Castletown (Palladian house) has fine Georgian interiors while Castle Ward is unique with one facade classical and one Gothic. Castlecoole, a James Wyatt masterpiece, has some of the most exquisite late 18C interiors.
In the Regency period both classical and mediaeval styles were in vogue. Barmeath Castle is dramatically neo-Norman; Killineer is an elegant Regency villa, whilst Ballywalter Park is an impressive early Victorian classical mansion with a spectacular staircase. The state rooms of Crom Castle evoke the richness of high Victorian Gothic. Baron’s Court is a treasure house of magnificent paintings and furniture.
Visits were made to the ruins of the early monastic sites on Devenish Island and Monasterboice (two of the finest 10C carved crosses), plus St Columba’s House, Kells, a unique 10C oratory. The later mediaeval period was represented by Trim Castle, a great Middle Age fortress.
There were many outstanding gardens and 18C landscape parks. At Killruddery a rare late 17C formal garden survives; Barmeath (18C layout, Thomas Wright); great 20C gardens too at Listoke House and Mount Stewart.
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2017: Art and Architecture of Bohemia 1200-1914 from Gothic to Cubist
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The Czech Republic has one of the richest concentrations of great houses in Europe, splendid churches and innumerable picturesque little Renaissance and Baroque towns. This is a new tour visiting many wonderful buildings from the mediaeval period to the early 20C.
The tour focused on Bohemia, a beautiful and unspoilt part of the Czech lands, with an incredibly rich cultural legacy. Highlights of our itinerary include Karlštejn castle, the great residence of Charles IV with its unique painted 14th-century chapel, and the remarkable mediaeval frescoes in the castle of Žirovnice, the beautiful moated villa of Kratochvíle with its sumptuous Renaissance decoration and the castles of Rožmberk and Pardubice, both with important Renaissance interiors, we saw architect Santini-Aichel's originality at the Kinský country house of Karlova Koruna and in the former monastery church of Želiv. Ceský Krumlov is an enchanting Renaissance town with a wonderfully preserved Rococo theatre. The country houses of Hrádek u Nechanic and Žleby are notable examples of Romantic Gothic Revival, complete with their original contents, whilst Konopište, the castle of Ferdinand d’Este, heir to the throne, is little changed since his assassination at Sarajevo in 1914. Finally a remarkable Cubist villa by Josef Gocár, one of the key figures of Czech modern architecture, brings us into the 20C.
Special visits to private houses, confiscated under Communism in 1949 and restituted to their former owners after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 was a feature of the tour. Click to close |
| Tour Guide Example |
An example of the 30-page, full-colour Tour Guide issued to all participants at the start of the 2023 tour of Norfolk.
An integral part of all tours, these carefully researched guides provide background information, photographs, plan drawings combined with historical detail. Key aspects, such as places of local interest, or significant topological features, are highlighted. |
| These tour guides, unique to WAFSC Tours, enhance the tour and ensure a lasting memory to be savoured long afterwards. |
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| Comments from Participants |
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★ Norfolk 2023:
☛ I can’t thank you enough for a really wonderful experience of enjoying the great houses of Norfolk with you. ☛ A big thank you for opening my eyes - a wonderful experience. Your beautifully prepared booklet is always an invaluable aide-memoire. |
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★ Dorset 2023:
☛ Thank you again for such a wonderful week taking us round all those marvellous country houses and gardens in Dorset. ☛ The attention to detail...so much historical and architectural background was extraordinary...the welcome and fantastic food in our country house hotel...it will last a long time in the memory. |
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★ NE Scotland 2022:
☛ Superbly well-planned, researched and led...an unforgettable tour...interesting to meet the many and varied private owners committed to preserving our inheritance. |
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★ Portugal 2021:
☛ We loved our trip and learnt so much. You have an amazing grasp both of the main picture and the minute detail |
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★ Vienna 2019:
☛ Another tour de force. Sending us home with a fresh appreciation of the glories of Vienna and a renewed appreciation of your efforts to make the world a fascinating place. |
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★ Ireland 2018:
☛ You organised and paced the whole trip beautifully and it was a joy to be looked after so well. Click to close |
| Current & Past Guest Lecturers |
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See Tour Guide