I spotted a fun event this weekend at Soho House in Handsworth called A Georgian Family Christmas (Dec 14, noon to 4pm, £5, £3 children/concs, £15 family). Soho House was the home to the great industrialist and founder member of the Lunar Society, Matthew Boulton (above), between the years 1766 and 1809. Now a museum, it's gearing up for the bicentenary of Boulton's death next year, but in the meantime there's some festive fun to be had...Visitors will be greeted by the housekeeper who will talk about Georgian food and Christmas traditions, and give cookery demonstrations using recipes from a Regency cookbook. You can see Soho House decked out in festive greenery and monitor the butler's progress in the dining room, making preparations for a lavish dinner. Meanwhile, in the drawing room there'll be carols and live music from period-instrument outfit Diabolus in Musica, not to mention seasonal refreshments in the tea room. How civilised!
PS Also just received an email from the
Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield to say there will be mince pies and mulled wine available for visitors this Sunday. There's also a bit of news on the Tercentenary:
This will be a very happy new year indeed, as we all look forward to 2009: the 300th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Johnson. Lichfield will be at the centre of the national celebrations and an exciting calendar of special events has been planned. Events at the museum begin on Sunday 1st March with Intimate Theatre in ‘The Golden Moment: a family farewell to Johnson & Garrick’. Tickets cost £6.50 including a pre-show drink and will be available to buy at the museum from January 10th . Other highlights include a living history weekend when ‘Johnson’s House Comes Alive!’ in May and entertainment from celebrated actress and historian Lesley Smith in ‘An Audience with Hester Thrale’ in June - two of the many events planned in the run up to an extra special Birthday weekend in September.
2 comments:
This sounds wonderful. As luck would have it I'm at work this weekend, grrr.
If you're interested, have a look at this:
http://www.historywardrobe.com/
I went to a talk earlier in the year about Regency male fashion, called "Undressing Mr Darcy". I really enjoyed it. They're putting on similar in context talks about Regency/Jane Austen Christmas this month. On Friday they're at Kedleston Hall, which is the closest. Highly recommended.
That looks great fun - thanks Laura. I'm sure these talks came to Lichfield but I couldn't go for some reason. I'll definitely seek one out! I must do a proper post about this but I toyed with attending this group:
http://www.regencyassembly.co.uk/
though I've got two left feet...
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