Victorian Architecture
& Design Talks
My phone is overheating with WhatsApps from Arts Club members raving about your talk! Your charming, relaxed style, your vast knowledge so lightly worn, and your sheer professionalism and enthusiasm were all superb.
Thank you for being such a brilliant part of this year’s Folkestone Book Festival. Your event was one of the most popular and entertaining of the whole programme, and I know everyone had such a great experience hearing about the history of Folkestone and seaside architecture in general.
The talk made me realise how many unlauded people there are in history who have done worthwhile things and how unsung women are in those histories.
The Old Convent, East Grinstead: J M Neale, G E Street & the Society of St Margaret
In 1855, John Mason Neale, Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, created one of the earliest orders of Anglican nuns in Britain. A decade later, work began on their Gothic-style convent to the designs of superstar architect George Edmund Street. This lecture tells the story of how the Sisters of St Margaret overcame prejudice against their High Church beliefs to take their nursing and education mission across the globe. Based on Kathryn’s book, written to celebrate 150 years since the convent’s opening, it discusses how religious life gave Victorian women a unique outlet for their talents and how St Margaret’s became a centre for girls’ education as well as an internationally renowned school of ecclesiastical embroidery.
Owen Jones: the Greatest ‘Lost’ Designer of the Nineteenth Century
This lecture explores the career of Owen Jones (1809–74), the Victorian architect and author of the classic design textbook The Grammar of Ornament’, on whom Kathryn Ferry wrote her PhD thesis. Though little known today, Jones was a pioneering exponent of Islamic design, became a household name through his work at London’s iconic Crystal Palace and was one of the founders of the V&A Museum.
Middle Class Taste in the Victorian Home
The late-19th century saw a craze for interior decoration as the rising middle class took advantage of the new purchasing possibilities brought about by industrialisation. In this lecture, Kathryn explores how notions of good taste differed between consumers who wished to display their new wealth through the acquisition of things and elite designers who increasingly rejected mass consumption in favour of Arts and Crafts simplicity.
The Romantic History of the Bungalow
The bungalow was introduced to Britain from colonial India in the 1850s. Taken up by the rich and famous as the ultimate ‘get-away-from-it-all’ holiday home, bungalows had become highly fashionable by the turn of the century. This lecture examines their early popularity and reveals the surprisingly unconventional past and architectural variety of the humble bungalow.
