London, Glasgow & the Cotswolds: Art, Architecture and Design 2024

Day 1: Tuesday 1 October, London Heathrow – Broadway

• Transfer London Heathrow Airport to Broadway
• Broadway Tower
• Gordon Russell Design Museum
• Welcome Dinner

Meeting Point: Hilton Garden Inn London Heathrow Airport (Hatton Cross), early morning (10am)

After an early morning arrival in London, we travel to Broadway Tower, an iconic landmark on top of the beautiful Cotswolds escarpment. It was the brainchild of the great 18th-century landscape designer, “Capability Brown”. His vision was carried out for George William 6th Earl of Coventry with the help of renowned architect James Wyatt and completed in 1798. A light lunch will be served at the Tower Barn on arrival.

During our guided tour of the Tower we shall learn about the members of the Arts and Crafts movement who used it as a country holiday retreat. Guests included pre-Raphaelite artists, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. William Morris started his campaign for the preservation of historic monuments whilst staying at the Tower.

We end the day with a tour of the Gordon Russell Design Museum which celebrates the design pioneer Gordon Russell and his furniture company. Gordon Russell Ltd produced high quality, innovative designs evolving from the Arts and Crafts style to fully fledged Modernism.

From the museum we continue to The Lygon Arms, a former 16th-century coaching inn, located in the centre of the charming village of Broadway. This evening we enjoy a welcome dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. (Overnight Broadway) LD

Day 2: Wednesday 2 October, Broadway – Kelmscott – Rodmarton – Stroud – Broadway

• Kelmscott Manor
• Rodmarton Manor
• All Saints Church Selsley

This morning we take a guided tour of Kelmscott Manor, the best known of the houses associated with William Morris who spent his summers here from 1871-1896. Lunch will be served in the Kelmscott Tearooms.

The Cotswolds became an important centre for the Arts and Crafts movement in the early 20th century when craftsmen and women followed in William Morris’s  footsteps and settled in villages throughout the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire. In the 1890s three young architect designers, Ernest Gimson and the brothers Ernest and Sidney Barnsley, settled near Cirencester. The migration of craftsmen continued in 1902 when CR Ashbee and some 100 followers settled in Chipping Campden. Today there are many villages and churches where the work of artists and architects from the Arts and Crafts movement can be seen.

In the afternoon we visit Rodmarton Manor, an English Arts and Crafts house and garden designed by Ernest Barnsley and built more or less by hand for the Biddulph family from 1909. Following a guided tour of the house by the owner, there will be time at leisure to explore the surrounding 8 acre garden which retains its original layout.

We end the day with a visit to All Saints Church Selsley, the first ecclesiastical commission for William Morris and Co, and the only church in Britain to have all its windows designed by William Morris and his colleagues.  The church features a series of three large windows including three triptychs: the Sermon on the Mount by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St. Paul preaching at Athens by William Morris, and Christ Blessing the Children by Edward Burne-Jones. The Rose window above the west door depicts scenes from the Creation that include a richly coloured Adam and Eve, considered to be one of the best small scale designs in stained glass by William Morris. (Overnight Broadway) BL

Day 3: Thursday 3 October, Broadway – Cheltenham – London

• The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham
• William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow

We depart Broadway this morning to visit the Wilson Art Gallery and Museum in Cheltenham which contains the internationally important collection of the British Arts and Crafts movement as well as contemporary work by their artistic descendants. The collection includes items of furniture, silver and other metalwork, jewellery, pottery, plasterwork, leatherwork, private press book and textiles.

Following time at leisure for lunch at museum’s cafe, the Wilson Kitchen, we journey to London to visit the William Morris Gallery. Here we take a tour led by a curator to learn more about Morris’s life and his work as a designer, writer and social activist. The exhibits include a wide range of objects, from tapestries and furniture to ceramic tiles, wallpapers, embroidery and paintings. (Overnight London) B

Day 4: Friday 4 October, London

• House and Studio Lambeth by Carmody Groarke
• Covert House by DSDHA
• The William Morris Society, Kelmscott House
• Charles Burnand Gallery
• Atelier of Milliner Stephen Jones (to be confirmed in 2024)

We begin today with a visit to House and Studio Lambeth. Set within a backland plot in Lambeth, south London, this project, completed by Carmody Groarke in 2018, “combines a new private house with ample workshop/studio space. Though landlocked on all sides by 19th-century terraced houses, the site was unusually large and the architects worked with a material palette of existing brickwork, concrete and white mortar to create modern, sculptural spaces that feel at the same time open, minimalist and solid…. The house’s clean interiors feature highlights in metal and marble, while a generous circulation core leads down to a basement swimming pool, dramatically lit from above. A cast in situ fireplace provides a focal point in the open-plan living space, which looks out to a selection of outdoors areas in the form of patios and richly planted roof gardens.” The house was featured in both Wallpaper* and dezeen.

Mid-morning we visit Covert House which is set behind a terrace-lined residential block in Clapham, South London. Completed in 2014 this residential project won the RIBA London Award (2016) and was finalist in the RIBA House of the Year Award (2016). “Deborah Saunt and David Hills of DSDHA set out to design their home as a testbed for their ideas on sustainability. Their experiments – carried out under restrictive Conservation Area planning conditions – resulted in an unorthodox, semi-underground house that challenges what it means to design a contemporary domestic space in our cities.”

William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press towards the end of his life. He wanted to revive the skills of hand printing, which mechanisation had destroyed, and restore the quality achieved by the pioneers of printing in the 15th century. The magnificent The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer now newly imprinted, published in 1896, is the triumph of the press.  Its 87 wood-cut illustrations are by Edward Burne-Jones, the celebrated Victorian painter, who was a life-long friend of Morris. We visit Kelmscott House where William Morris lived from 1878 until his death in 1896. Home to The William Morris Society, it hosts regular exhibitions of work by Morris and those inspired by him. The small museum contains a number of Kelmscott Press titles and Morris’s original Albion printing press used in the production of the Kelmscott Press Chaucer. Dating from c 1835 the printing press is fully operational and the only one used by Morris left in the country.

In the afternoon we visit Charles Burnand, a bespoke design gallery founded in 2009 by Simon Stewart, representing contemporary artists and studios realising custom commissions for collectors, interior designers and architects. Heavily influenced by the Mid-Century Modern Italian design era, Charles Burnand designs and makes lighting and furniture using Murano glass, straw marquetry, gypsum, mica and other natural materials as well as collaborating with AD-100 designers to produce limited edition pieces. Featured in the Architectural Digest coverage of SALON A+D in November 2018, the ICONs collection launched by Charles Burnand epitomised the creative abilities of the company.

We end the day with a visit to the atelier of Stephen Jones OBE, considered one of the most radical and important milliners of the late 20th and 21st centuries. He is also one of the most prolific, having created hats for many leading couturiers and fashion designers including Balenciaga, Raf Simons, Lanvin, Karl Lagerfeld, Burberry, Vivienne Westwood, Comme des Garçons, Marc Jacobs, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Note and Giambattista Balli. His work is known for its inventiveness and high level of technical expertise. Jones co-curated the 2009 exhibition Hats: An Anthology for the Victoria and Albert Museum. (Overnight London) B

Day 5: Saturday 5 October, London

• Victoria & Albert Museum: Curator led tour of 20th-century design incl. fashion & furniture
• (To be confirmed)
• Egg: an idiosyncratic fashion brand
• Mint: a design gallery

This morning we enjoy a curator-led tour of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which displays one of the most extensive collections of 20th century fashion including designers such as Coco Chanel. There’s space allocated to emerging designers as well as recent graduates from leading design schools. The Museum also has a significant collection of 20th-century furniture, lighting and objects. Highlights include the Gyeol Flow bench designed in 2016 by Korean company FABRIKR, who upcycles discarded textiles, modifying their physical properties to make new and surprising composite objects. Here scraps of denim jeans have been pressed and moulded with epoxy resin to a wooden plank to create a small bench. There is also a witty and elegant evening coat designed in 1937 by Jean Cocteau and Elsa Schiaparelli, who ran a successful court house in Paris in the 1920s and -30s.

This afternoon we visit egg (without a capital letter for design and trading purposes), founded by designer Maureen Doherty in 1994. This idiosyncratic fashion brand which creates amply cut, layerable clothes using natural fabrics, is housed in a former dairy depot, the walls inside still lined with blue tiles.

Established in 1998 by Lina Kanafani, Mint is a “design gallery based in Central London. Renowned for its contemporary collections it offers cutting edge design cleverly mixed with innovative one-off pieces. Mint represents exclusive works by internationally recognised designers as well as new emerging talent. The gallery complements contemporary design with unique handcrafted ceramics, glassware and textiles.” (Overnight London) B

Day 6: Sunday 6 October, London

• Barbican Centre
• Meet with artist Freddie Yauner
• Private house of Nicholas Boyarsky & Nicola Murphy, Boyarsky Murphy Architects

This morning, we take a private architectural tour of the Barbican Centre, a cultural and housing development that has both inspired and caused controversy since its inauguration.  The Barbican is a Brutalist icon, home to some 4,000 residents across 2,000 flats, organised around schools, a church, a library, an artificial lake, conservatory and an entire arts centre.

In the afternoon we meet with Freddie Yauner who designs products and installations that aim to engage and inform. He is concerned with exploring the state of the world through designed objects. Yauner graduated from the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art in 2008 where he achieved an MA with Distinction. He has work in the permanent collection of the Design Museum and had his piece ‘Signs of Life’ acquired to the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.  In March 2022 Yauner’s Sudden Summer installation was exhibited at The William Morris Society. Most well-known for his floral designs, William Morris was a passionate social reformer and an early environmentalist. Yauner’s installation which highlighted the effects of climate change and Morris’s role as a social reformer and early environmentalist, featured images painted using handmade pollen pigment.

We end the day with a visit to the private home of Nicholas Boyarsky & Nicola Murphy, co-directors of Boyarsky Murphy Architects. Prior to founding BMA in 1994, Nicola worked for OMA on Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, Sauerbruch Hutton on the GSW tower in Berlin, Stefano de Martino on Chiat Day’s London offices and for Swanke Hayden Connell on Deutsche Bank’s London headquarters, while Nicholas worked for Zaha Hadid on projects in Berlin and Hamburg, Michael Hopkins on Bracken House, and for Stefano de Martino on Chiat Day’s London offices.

Nicholas Boyarsky is the son of the late Alvin Boyarsky, one of the most influential figures in 20th-century architectural education. His home includes some of the drawings assembled by his father when he was chairman of the Architectural Association (AA) from 1971 until his death in 1990.  In 2015, the exhibition Drawing Ambience showcased Alvin Boyarsky’s private collection which brought together an iconic set of drawings by some of the most prominent architects and artists of our time—including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Mary Miss, OMA-Rem Koolhaas, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bernard Tschumi, Shin Takamatsu, and others. (Overnight London) B

Day 7: Monday 7 October, London

• Toogood design studio
• Design Museum by John Pawson and OMA
• Cosmic House designed by Charles Jencks
• Private home of Alison Brookes, Alison Brooks Architects

This morning we visit Toogood, a design studio founded by Faye Toogood in 2008. This contemporary brand encompasses interior design, homewares, fine art and fashion. The fashion side of the business was co-founded by sisters Faye and Erica Toogood. “They approach their work obliquely, collaborating with architects, product designers and painters to create clothes that are both practical and sculptural. A celebration of craftsmanship has been at the core of the brand from the outset. Each piece takes its name, inspiration and cut from a traditional trade: the ‘Metalworker’ jacket, the ‘Stonemason’ trouser, and so on. Their Autumn/Winter 2022 collection which was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, celebrated the honesty behind craftsmanship.

The Design Museum in Kensington which exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design, is housed in £83-million home completed in 2016. “Dutch architecture practice OMA worked with London firm Allies and Morrison, and  Arup engineers to restore the shell of the 1960s Grade II*-listed building in west London – including its distinctive copper-covered, hyperbolic paraboloid roof. Architectural designer John Pawson  was responsible for the building’s newly reconfigured interiors, where the Design Museum’s galleries are arranged around a minimal oak- and marble-lined atrium.” Following our tour of the museum there will be time at leisure for lunch at the museum’s café.

The godfather of Postmodernism and the author of the 1977 book The Language of Postmodern Architecture, the late architect Charles Jencks also made a name for himself with his extraordinary gardens. Among his most famous works was Cosmic House in Holland Park, the first Postmodern house to be listed Grade I in the U.K. Initiated in 1978, the house is a compendium of the symbolism and references pulled from Jencks’s own life. A collaboration between him, his wife Maggie, and the architect Terry Farrell, the house contains additional contributions from Piers Gough, Eduardo Paolozzi, Michael Graves, Allen Jones, Celia Scott, and many more. By special appointment we enjoy a private tour of this symbolism-studded home.

Alison Brooks in one of the most highly awarded private residence architects in the UK. Her awards range from the Stephen Lawrence Prize in 2006 to the RIBA House of the Year in 2021. In 2017 she completed a loft conversion of her London home in Queen’s Park; the ground floor and extension are due to complete in 2023. We are extremely fortunate to be able to visit her own recently completed home – allowing us to see what a great architect designs for herself! (Overnight London) B

Day 8: Tuesday 8 October, London – Glasgow

• Morning Train from London Euston to Glasgow Central (0930-1402)
• Hunterian Art Gallery and The Mackintosh House
• The Hunterian: The Mackintosh & Whistler Collections & The Glasgow Boys
• Optional house-brewed beer at The Shilling Brewing Company

Early this morning we depart London for Glasgow with ScotRail. On arrival in Glasgow Central Station we walk 220m to our hotel, the voco Grand Central Glasgow.

In the afternoon we travel by public transport to the Hunterian Art Gallery  which is famous for its Whistler and Mackintosh collections. The Mackintosh Collection covers the full range of Mackintosh’s output as architect, designer and artist and includes works on paper, numbering around 1000 items. This includes architectural, furniture and interior designs, textile designs, flower drawings and watercolours. There is also the principal holding of the work of Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, representative examples by the other members of the ‘Group of Four’ – J. Herbert McNair and Frances Macdonald and a small but important archive of photographs, papers and publications.

Within the gallery we also view the Mackintosh House, a recreation of the main interiors from Charles Rennie and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh’s original house which once stood nearby. Its decoration, fixtures and furniture resemble the original as closely as possible.

The Whistler Collection houses one of the pre-eminent collections of the work of the American-born painter, printmaker, aesthete, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). “Whistler’s night-time views of London and the Thames, striking full-length portraits, innovative etchings, flamboyant Peacock Room interior, and his progressive views about art, challenged the artistic establishment and laid important foundations for twentieth-century abstraction”.

We also view the Hunterian’s collection of over 200 works by the ‘Glasgow Boys’, a group of radical young painters that represent the beginnings of modernism in Scottish painting. They were strongly influenced by the realism of Dutch and French art, especially the Naturalist paintings of Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848 – 1884), and also by the tonal painting of the American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903).

We end the day with an optional visit to the Shilling Brewing Company housed in the former old Bank of Scotland building. The £1.5m retrofit, overseen by Jestico+Whiles, was featured in Wallpaper* . Here we may enjoy one of their house-brewed beers. (Overnight Glasgow) B

Day 9: Wednesday 9 October, Glasgow – Helensburgh – Glasgow

• The Hill House, Helensburgh – a domestic masterpiece by Charles Rennie Mackintosh & ‘The Box’ by Carmody Groarke
• Mackintosh Club Helensburgh: light lunch
• Kibble Palace, Glasgow Botanic Garden
• Mackintosh Queen’s Cross: talk, wine & nibbles

The Hill House (1902–1904), Helensburgh, designed for Walter Blackie of the publishers Blackie and Son, is one of Charles and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh’s most famous works, probably second only to their Glasgow School of Art. Mackintosh also designed most of the house’s interior, furniture and fittings. His attention to detail extended to prescribing the colour of cut flowers that the Blackies might place on a table in the living room! As part of the 10-year conservation program, Carmody Groarke have designed ‘The Box’, a steel frame structure covered in chainmail mesh which encloses the house and protects it from the weather. There are elevated walkways looping around and over the top of the house that affords us with unique perspectives of the house and surrounding countryside. Following a private tour of the house, there will be time to explore The Box and the lovely gardens.

Late morning we transfer to the Mackintosh Club in Helensburgh for a talk and light lunch. Officially opened as a clubhouse in December 1895, the innovative style of the principal façade and the interior suggest that Mackintosh was involved in the design.

After lunch we transfer to the Glasgow Botanic Garden to view the splendid Kibble Palace. This 19th-century wrought iron framed glasshouse was originally designed as a private conservatory at Coulport on Loch Long for John Kibble by architects, James Boucher and James Cousland in the 1860’s. It moved to its current location in 1873 and was used as an exhibition space, meeting place and concert venue. Now it is used to house temperate plants including a forest of tree ferns.

We end the day with a talk accompanied by wine and nibbles at Mackintosh Queen’s Cross, the only church designed by Mackintosh to be built, and now the Society’s International headquarters. Magnificent stained glass and exceptional relief carving on wood and stonework are highlights of the interior where light and space are used to dramatic effect. (Overnight Glasgow) BL 

Day 10: Thursday 10 October, Glasgow

• Orientation walk with Peter Trowles incl. the Glasgow Art Club
• Corinthian Club by Graven: visit followed by Light 2-course lunch. (To be confirmed)
• Timorous Beasties: Introduction in Design Studio & screen-printing demonstration in the Print Room

We start the day with a short orientation walk led by Peter Trowles, the former Mackintosh Curator at the world-renowned Glasgow School of Art. Our tour includes a visit to the private Glasgow Art Club, founded in 1867 for artists and lay members with an interest in the arts. Highlights include the Gallery frieze designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh who assisted John Keppie in the design of the gallery saloon.

Graven Images, shortened to “Graven”, is Glasgow’s most high profile design studio, with multiple international clients. Founded by Ross Hunter and Janice Kirkpatrick, the couple met in the mid 1980s at London, Glasgow & the Cotswolds: Art, Architecture and Design 2024 Page 11 April 2022 Glasgow School of Art: he studied architecture, she graphic design. On graduation they established their own business offering a complete design service. They have completed numerous works in Glasgow including the Riverside Campus of Glasgow and the new home for the Hunterian at Kelvin Hall.

This morning, we hope to meet with a representative from Graven for a private tour of the Corinthian Club. Graven collaborated with G1 Group and some of Scotland’s leading artisan craftsmen to refurbish the interior of this iconic Grade-A listed building. “The project included a mosaic floor made of half a million tiles, over a thousand hand moulded acanthus leaves, fitting hand carved panels and restoring ornate wooded detailing and a stunning 26 foot glass dome over the Telling Room.” At the end of the visit of the Corinthian Club, we enjoy a light 2-course lunch.

This afternoon we visit Timorous Beasties, a design-led manufacturing company founded in 1990 by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, noted for its surreal and provocative textiles and wallpapers. In 2015, as part of their 25th year in textile design, Timorous Beasties launched a new design trio ‘in debt to the great master, William Morris’. William Morris could not be a more appropriate muse for Timorous Beasties, as one of his main achievements was reviving British textile design and production, whilst his association with the Arts and Crafts movement seems particularly apt, given that the founding duo were both students at The Glasgow School of Art, an iconic Macintosh arts and crafts building. Our tour consists of an introduction to the company in the Design Studio, followed by a screen-printing demonstration by Gavin, Master Printmaker, in the Print Room and then concluding with a talk in the onsite showroom, The Shed. (Overnight Glasgow) BL

Day 11: Friday 11 October, Glasgow – Lenzie – Pollokshields – North Ayrshire – Glasgow

• The Maker’s House, Lenzie by Loader Monteith
• House for an Art Lover: Guided tour
• The Collector’s Home, Pollokshields by Loader Monteith
• House for a Chemist, North Ayrshire by Brown & Brown
• Mackintosh at the Willow: tour and farewell dinner in ‘The Salon de Luxe’

This morning we depart for the Lenzie Conservation Area of Dunbartonshire to visit ‘The Maker’s House’ where Loader Monteith has reconfigured a Victorian merchant’s house to create a home for an architectural designer and ceramicist, and added a blackened timber pottery studio. Completed in 2021 it was nominated for the Scottish Design Awards in 2022. The property has been featured in numerous magazines including Dezeen,  Archdaily and Architecture Today.

From Lenzie we travel to south Glasgow for a visit to House for an Art Lover, located in the magnificent grounds of Bellahouston Park. The building was constructed between 1989 and 1996 based on a 1901 Art Nouveau elegant country retreat design by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife, Margaret MacDonald. Following our private tour of the house we enjoy a light lunch in the Art Lover’s Café.

In nearby Pollokshields we view ‘The Collectors Home’ a second residential project by Loader Monteith. This project, designed in 2018, involved the internal reconfiguration of a ground floor flat (part of a subdivided Georgian villa) to make a family kitchen and garden room. The project was featured in the architecture magazine, Homes & Interiors Scotland.

A highlight of our tour is a visit to ‘House for a Chemist’, the refurbishment and extension of a traditional Victorian villa, on the coast of Ayrshire. A contemporary extension, of glass and blackened stainless steel, frame views across the Firth of Clyde to the Isle of Arran, and uses split levels to respect the original topography of the site. Completed by Brown & Brown architects in 2021, ‘House for a Chemist’ received a commendations for the Scottish Design Award 2022 and the Aberdeen Society of Architects Award 2022. It also featured in Wallpaper* in July 2022.

Tonight we dine at the recently restored Willow Tea Rooms on Sauchiehall Street, now called ‘Mackintosh at the Willow’. They are the only surviving tea rooms designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh – they were created for local entrepreneur and patron Miss Kate Cranston. There will be time to view the permanent Mackintosh Collection housed at the Willow and enjoy a dining experience in the beautiful ‘Salon de Luxe’. (Overnight Glasgow) BD

Day 12: Saturday 12 October, Depart Glasgow, Tour ends

• Morning Check-out
• Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum: Mackintosh & the Glasgow Style Gallery with Peter Trowles
• Tour ends approx. 12.30 midday

We conclude our tour with a visit to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Here we take a guided tour of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Glasgow Style gallery, the largest display in the city of the Glasgow Style’s wide range of media and techniques: stained glass, works on paper, textiles and embroidery, jewellery, repoussé metalwork, silver, enamelwork, glass, gesso, furniture and interiors. Following our tour there will be time at leisure to further explore the galleries. Highlights include Salvador Dali’s masterpiece ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ and works by Monet, Gauguin and Renoir.

Our tour ends in Glasgow midday. You will be required to check-out of your rooms in the morning, prior to departing for the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. For directions to Glasgow Airport see www.glasgowairport.com/to-and-from/.  B