The talk will explore the significance and beauty of the estate in the creative hands of successive members of the Harcourt family over the last three centuries during which it attracted poets, artists, statesmen and monarchs. It was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll to write Alice Through the Looking Glass and for Mavis Batey to launch her influential career as a garden historian. Her advocacy for the national importance of the designed landscape of Nuneham has ensured that its essential elements have survived and continue to be enjoyed today.
Malcolm Airs is a historian who was Conservation Officer at South Oxfordshire District Council at the time when the whole Nuneham landscape was designated a conservation area and included on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest at Grade I. He was subsequently Professor of Conservation and the Historic Environment at the university of Oxford.
Maximum number 100. £4 members, £5 guests
Booking available here.