Our Poppy Factory visit on Friday 13 May 2022

RLHS members and their guests visited The Poppy Factory, which is on Petersham Road in Richmond, on Friday 13 May 2022 from 3pm to 5pm. Established 100 years ago, the Poppy Factory still makes Remembrance products there, and it also supports veterans into all kinds of employment across England and Wales.

We learned the history of the Factory and were able to have a go at making your own remembrance poppy. We also learned how veterans still make Royal and regimental wreaths by hand today.

Established in the aftermath of the First World War, and an integral part of Richmond since the 1920s, The Poppy Factory developed into a community of wounded and injured veterans and their families. Today, The Poppy Factory is a national charity that still makes Remembrance products there, and it also supports veterans into all kinds of employment across England and Wales.

As part of our visit we enjoyed a delicious Factory Tea-break served by veteran baristas, with freshly baked cakes served by in-house artisan bakers.

On 24 June 2019 we visited a fascinating Tudor mansion surrounded by a water-filled moat

Our 2019 coach trip was to Michelham Priory in East Sussex, a fascinating Tudor mansion surrounded by England’s longest medieval water-filled moat. Set in seven acres of beautiful grounds (including kitchen, physic and herb gardens), its history covers some 800 years from its foundation by Augustinian canons, through the destruction caused by the dissolution of the monasteries, to its later life as a private country house and use as a base for Canadian troops in World War II preparing for the Dieppe raid.

As well as enjoying a guided tour of the house, we were able to explore outside features including the medieval watermill, historic forge, replica Bronze Age roundhouse, rope museum and magnificent Great Barn.

Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill: a private guided tour on 22 October 2018

For the first time in over 170 years, masterpieces from a once famous collection at Strawberry Hill House were temporarily reunited and displayed in their original positions. In 1842, after Horace Walpole’s death, his collection was dispersed worldwide.  From October 2018 to February 2019, many returned home, including Joshua Reynolds’ painting of Walpole’s nieces which was re-hung in the Great Parlour.

The Society organised a private guided tour of this exhibition on Monday 22 October 2018.

July 2017: visit to Mortlake Crematorium

On Saturday 8 July 2017, members of the Society visited Mortlake Crematorium in Kew. Opened in 1939, this was the first jointly run municipal crematorium and today serves Richmond upon Thames, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hounslow and Ealing.

We met in the crematorium’s chapel to hear from Brian Parsons the story of this interesting Grade II building which has been called “a rare example” of Art Deco design in the borough of Richmond and “a building of exceptional quality and character”. Colin Hines describes it as “probably the most undiscovered deco treasure in London”.

June 2017: coach trip to Hever Castle, Kent

Our summer coach outing, on Tuesday 27 June 2017,  was to Hever Castle – rated 4 stars by Simon Jenkins. Dating back to 1270, Hever Castle was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn and has on display two beautiful illuminated prayer books which belonged to her.

Judith Church took the photographs during the visit.

2015: Coach trip to Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire

John Foley reports on the visit. Judith Church took the photographs.

It’s selected as one of the ‘Glories of secret Britain, 20 historic houses you must visit’ in a very recent popular national newspaper summer colour spread. And if you were one of the 40 enthusiastic day trippers who boarded the Society’s hired coach outside Richmond Theatre on a beautiful summer morning, you’ll no doubt now agree; if you didn’t know about it before, the National Trust’s Wimpole Hall really is a must to visit.

And for once the publicity blurb does not mislead. The magnificent main building, in classical style, is the work of a combination of great architects and artists. Originally built in the 1640s for Sir Thomas Chicheley (Pepys knew him and wrote that he was one of the best tennis players in England; Charles II is supposed to have played him), the property passed first to the Harley family, then to the Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor in the 1740s, whose building programme reshaped the house into today’s form. James Gibbs added touches of baroque in the library and chapel, whilst James Thornhill, the premier 18th century fresco painter (and father-in-law of Hogarth whose house at Chiswick is just across the Thames – there’s a local connection!) decorated the chapel. The Yellow Drawing Room created by Sir John Soane (1793) is a highlight, and, talking of lights, has a unique very early gasolier (1816) suspended below Soane’s ceiling lantern dome. Not to be missed either is the gloriously elegant Book Room, a delightfully bright and airy reading room designed originally by Gibbs (1730) and later expanded by Soane. There are countless other gems, drawing rooms, galleries, the lavish Lord Chancellor’s Room . . . far too many to take in at one visit. The National Trust guides who staff the rooms are top quality, well-informed, enthusiastic, yet not intrusive; in essence, again to quote the newspaper blurb, it’s an ‘education in British classicism’.

Outside: note the magnificent park from the front facade stretching away to the south, in which Capability Brown had a big hand, which so sadly has still to recover from the loss from Dutch elm disease of its former mile-long double avenue of slender elegant elms; then go the model farm, again built by Soane in the 1790s, now restored and stocked with working shire horses, sheep, cattle, pigs – a particular plus if you take children, who can watch the animals at close quarters; don’t forget the cafe and refreshment areas, tastefully situated in restored out-buildings; and to say nothing of the landscaped gardens (Gothic Tower, ruin, Chinese bridge . . .)

After a long period of decline the house was acquired in the 1930s by Captain and Mrs Bambridge – none other than the daughter of Rudyard Kipling. In David Souden’s excellent guide he says that the great man visited the house shortly before his death and is believed to have warned his daughter, ‘Bird, I hope you have not bitten off more than you can chew!’. As his heiress Elsie Bambridge used her inheritance to start restoration and restocking of the house and estate before bequeathing it to the National Trust in 1976. And on 24 June the members and friends on our coach trip could inspect the happy fruits of her labours, and of the National Trust after her.

2014: Coach trip to Wilton House, a Palladian palace