What’s on in York – EXHIBITION: The Keeping of Christmas

Nov _13Christmas

Fairfax House :

Tue 13 Nov – Sun 30 Dec :

Opening Times :

General museum admission applies.

Experience Fairfax House in all its splendour as it celebrates The Keeping of Christmas with a magnificent festive installation inspired by the traditions of the eighteenth century. See the Georgians’ love of the natural world as they decorated their homes for Christmas, as well as their festive food, extravagant dining table displays, elegant decorations, and remarkable Twelfth Night Cake.

Enjoy mulled wine, mince pies and brandy butter served in The Georgian Kitchen throughout the season.

Adult: £7.50, Concession: £6.00, Child: £3.00

Family Ticket (2 Adults and up to 3 Children): £17.50

For more information visit our website please.

What’s on in York: Masterclass – The Glory of Gilding A Beginners Guide

Nov _8Guilding

Fairfax House :

Thu 8 Nov :

5.30pm – 9.00pm :

£50.00 (Members: £45.00)

Rob Oldfield, master gilder, explores the art of gilding and the magic of gold leaf by candlelight in the eighteenth-century house. This practical masterclass will introduce you to the different uses and traditional techniques of laying gold leaf. Under Rob’s tuition you will develop the skills to be confident in undertaking your own projects and bring the magic of gilding into your own home. By the conclusion participants will have their own gilded decorative Christmas ornament to take home. All materials for this workshop are included as well as a hearty soup & sandwich supper, wine and refreshments.

This event is not suitable for children.

For further information please visit our website.

What’s on in York: Unfortunate Princes

Sep _27Princes

Fairfax House :

Thu 27 Sep :

7.00pm – 8.30pm :

£14.00 (Members: £12.00, Students: £8.00)

By 1745, the son of the deposed James II & VII, Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, had been living in exile for over 55 years, firstly in France – ‘the support and shelter of unfortunate princes’ – and then Rome. This lecture will discuss the background and progress of the most famous attempt to restore the senior and Catholic branch of the Stuart Dynasty by the Old Pretender’s son Charles Edward Stuart – Bonnie Prince Charlie – during the turbulent years of 1745-6.

Dr Jacqueline Riding is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London and alumna of the University of York (PhD). She is the author of the award-winning Jacobites: A New History of the ’45 Rebellion (Bloomsbury 2016), trustee of the Jacobite Studies Trust and senior editor of Jacobite Studies (Manchester University Press).

Jaqueline Riding: http://www.jacquelineriding.com/

Twitter @jaqriding

To book tickets please click here.

What’s on in York: Dr Johnson as a Guide to Life

Sep _7Johnson

Fairfax House :

Fri 7 Sep :

7.00pm – 8.30pm :

£14.00 (Members: £12.00, Students: £8.00)

Samuel Johnson was a critic, an essayist, a poet and a biographer. A polymath and a great conversationalist, his intellectual and social curiosity were boundless. Yet he was a deeply melancholy man, haunted by dark thoughts, sickness and a diseased imagination.

In his own life, both public and private, he sought to choose a virtuous and prudent path, negotiating everyday hazards and temptations. His writings and aphorisms illuminate what it means to lead a life of integrity, and his experience, abundantly documented by him and by others, is a lesson in the art of regulating the mind and the body.

Henry Hitchings was born in 1974. He has written mainly about language and history, starting in 2005 with Dr Johnson’s DictionaryThe Secret Life of Words (2008) won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award, as well as seeing him shortlisted for the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. 2011′s The Language Wars completed what was in effect a trilogy of books about language. He is a prolific critic and has made several programmes for radio and television, on subjects including Erasmus Darwin, the eighteenth-century English novel and the history of manners. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Twitter: @henryhitchings

Website: http://henryhitchings.com/index.html

To book tickets please click here

What’s on in York: Kill or Cure – Living & Dying with the Georgians

Fairfax 4-1024x 683

Fairfax House :

Sat 11 Aug & Sun 12 Aug :

10.00am – 5.00pm & 11.00am – 4.00pm :

Free as part of admission to Fairfax House

Come and meet the ladies of the house who prepared home cures for the family, servants and even the ‘deserving’ poor. Hear about the strange deaths recorded in the frequently published bills of mortality and the even stranger recipes for curing a sword wound, the flux and the ague.

The remedies they turned to were more horrible and varied than your imagination could ever supply.

As a last resort … you might even encounter the Georgian Surgeon who came equipped with an array of special tools but unfortunately no anaesthetic!

Suitable for all ages.

Free as part of admission to Fairfax House

Adult: £7.50, Concession: £6.00, Child (6-16): £3.00, Family Ticket (2 Adults and up to 3 Children): £17.50

For more information or to book tickets please click here.

What’s on in York: Flower Festival at Fairfax House in Bloom

Flower Festival (2)Fairfax House 

Tue 3 Jul – Sun 8 Jul 

10.00am – 5.00pm 

Free as part of admission to Fairfax House

For 2018, Fairfax in Bloom will be inspired by the extraordinary genius of Grinling Gibbons.

Taking inspiration from the ‘Michaelangelo of Wood’s’ carvings and sculptures, floral designers from Acomb Flower Guild will be creating displays that pay homage to the hallmarks, motifs and designs of Gibbons’ artworks.

Our guest designers will also capture the essence of the Georgians’ love of horticulture and fascination with the natural world, translating it through flowers, fruit and foliage to create floral artworks that mantle the period interiors of Fairfax House with a riot of colour.

For more information please visit this website.

What’s on in York: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Six Impossible Things

Fairfax House :

Thu 14 Jun :

7.00pm – 8.30pm :

£14.00 (Members £12.00) Includes refreshments

Ben Russell, Curator of Mechanical Engineering at the Science Museum, considers the ‘Impossible’ in the Age of Reason … unimaginable new technologies, mind-blowing scientific discoveries and revolutionary new ideas. Challenging everything that had gone before, these advancements brought into sharp focus the tensions between imagination and wonder, rationality and reason. In doing so, they provoked controversy, and pushed the boundaries of what Georgian Britain was prepared to believe in.

For more information please check out this web site

What’s on in York: The Vulgar Tongue With Professor Julie Coleman

7pm

Fairfax House

£14.00 (£12.00 Friends and Members) includes a post-lecture wine reception

 

Francis Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) comes with a pedigree of written sources to provide historical credibility, but he claimed also to have consulted ‘soldiers on the long march, seamen at the cap-stern, ladies disposing of their fish … the applauding populace, attending … executions’. His colourful account of the seamier side of Regency London is both engaging and repellent: in a statement that is not entirely in keeping with the contents of the dictionary, he re-assures his readers that he has dealt with indelicate and immodest words ‘in the most decent manner possible’.

For Slang’s foremost scholar, Julie Coleman, (Professor of English Language at the University of Leicester and author of four monographs on the cant and slang dictionary tradition covering the sixteenth to the twentieth century), slang is neither completely reprehensible nor entirely admirable – though as her lecture will vividly demonstrate, completely fascinating.

Professor Coleman’s The Life of Slang outlines the history of slang around the English-speaking world and she has also worked on the language of Bunyan, the influence of advertising on the English language and on English words for love, sex and marriage since Anglo-Saxon times.

Francis Grose’s ‘Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue’ was first published in 1785, and is a dictionary of slang words. Grose was one of the first lexicographers to collect slang words from all corners of society, not just from the professional underworld of pickpockets and bandits. Grose and his assistant Tom Cocking took midnight walks through London, picking up slang words in slums, drinking dens and dockyards and adding them into their ‘knowledge-box’. ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ was recognised throughout the 19th century as one of the most important collections of slang in the English language, and it would strongly influence later dictionaries of this kind.

What’s on in York: Lecture – Mr Foote’s Other Leg

Mr Footes Other LegFairfax House :

Wed 25 Apr :

7.00pm – 8.30pm (approx) :

£14

Georgian Superstar, Samuel Foote: satirist, impressionist and dangerous comedian. Adored by many, despised by some, Foote found himself at the sharp end of press attacks…and a surgeon’s knife – probably here in Yorkshire – and lost his leg. In an age obsessed with fame, Foote became an emblem for all that might be wrong with celebrity culture. Ian Kelly, award-winning biographer, actor and West End playwright narrates the bizarre career of England’s only one-legged transvestite comedy superstar…and what his story tells us of our debt to 18th century culture.

The event includes a post-lecture wine reception, ‘audience with author’ and book signing.

Unsuitable for Younger Children.

Ticket prices :

General: £14.00

Friends of Fairfax House and YCT Members Tickets: £12

Includes glass of wine or soft drink

For more information or to book tickets please click here.