history | Regional Furniture Society

We will start on Tuesday afternoon at Gregynog Hall near Newtown, a fine nineteenth-century mansion with an exceptional early seventeenth-century carved oak room surviving from the earlier house. This was the twentieth-century home of the Davies sisters who were early collectors of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, all now in the National Museum of Wales. Twentieth-century collections in the house are furniture by Peter Waals and Brynmawr. Gregynog is the home of the famous private press of the same name. In the early evening, we visit Cwm Weeg, Newtown, a fifteenth-century cruck farmhouse with late twentieth-century extensions and large garden including a grotto.

On Wednesday morning we meet at Brithdir Hall, Berriew, a sixteenth-century timber-framed house with later Georgian alterations and an interesting collection of early pictures and furniture. Lunch will be at the Horseshoes Inn, Berriew. In the afternoon we will have a tour of Vaynor Park, Berriew, a seventeenth-century brick-built mansion substantially embellished c.1840 by Thomas Penson. It has been home to the current owner’s family since the mid-eighteenth century and its collections include fine twentieth-century pictures. This is followed by an early evening visit to Llanerchydol Hall, near Welshpool, an early nineteenth-century neo-gothic house by one of the Reptons, containing some of the original mirrors and pier tables.

On Thursday we visit Walcot Hall, Bishops Castle, a brick mansion by William Chambers for 1^st Lord Clive, with substantial twentieth-century alterations. Our final visit will be to the Judge’s Lodgings, Presteigne, with early nineteenth-century purpose-built court rooms and cells by Edward Haycock and original furnishings.

A two-course lunch on Wednesday and Thursday, a two-course supper on Wednesday and tea and cake on all three days is included.

Numbers will be limited to 30

Cost: £225

Please complete the Booking Form and send to RFS Events Team at events.rfs@gmail.com by 27 March 2026. You will be sent payment details in the following week.

This 2-day symposium, developed as part of the exhibition ‘Part of the Furniture: The Library of John Bedford’ (Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, University of Leeds, 9 January – 21 December 2024), and in collaboration with Temple Newsam, Leeds, seeks to explore furniture history as a subject and to reflect on what furniture history of the future might look like.

The history of furniture remains one of the dominant areas of interest within the history of the so-called ‘Decorative Arts’. Since it emerged in the 19th century, scholarship focused on furniture history has expanded far beyond the interests of its earlier pioneers, transforming furniture history as a discipline.

The symposium programme includes a facilitated tour at Temple Newsam (part of Leeds Museums & Galleries) to explore the world-class furniture collections at the house, as well as an opportunity to see extra materials from the collection of John Bedford at the University.

Bookings details and the conference programme are in this link.