Rugby Art Gallery and Ashby Manor House, Northants.

 Really important to note please: If you pay by BT it is essential to let Judy know you have paid and where you are boarding the coach otherwise you won't be on the list!
judyandtony@phonecoop.coop or 423033

 

 

FRIENDS OF LEAMINGTON SPA ART GALLERY & MUSEUM

 

TRIP TO RUGBY ART GALLERY & MUSEUM &

ASHBY MANOR HOUSE, ASHBY ST LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

TUESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2025

 

Organiser – Judy Ross  423033  Contact on day 07580388659

 

Leaving Newbold Comyn at 9.15am with a pick up opposite the Spa Centre a few minutes later.

 

We are closer to home for this trip and go straight to Rugby Art Gallery.  There are currently two exhibitions showing in the Gallery, Found in the Fields expressed in lithographs, linocuts and screen prints and Woven from the Fields showing willow weaving and textiles.  The local history and archaeology galleries will also be open.  There is a cafe called Pickle and Pie at the Art Gallery where morning coffee and lunch can be bought.

We leave Rugby at 1.30pm to travel to Ashby Manor House where we will have a tour of the house and will then be able to wander in the garden.  The Manor is mentioned in the Doomsday Book but the house probably dates back to the 13^th century when it came by marriage to the Catesbys.  One of the most notorious of whom was Robert Catesby who was a major player in the Gunpowder Plot.  It is thought that the conspirators met in a room at the house which we can see.  There were demolitions and rebuilding the latest of which was work by Sir Edward Lutyens on both the house and garden.  Lutyens also did work in the village.  Nearby to the house is the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Leodegarius which will be open the afternoon we are there.  The church was built sometime in the 14^th and 15^th centuries.  It contains stained glass windows, memorials and wall paintings from the 14^th to 16^th centuries which were uncovered in 1929.  Tea and cake will be provided at the house which is included in the price.

Leaving at 4.30pm

 

EITHER fill in the booking form & return with cheque, made out to Friends of Leamington Art Gallery, to Judy Ross, 28 Binswood Avenue, Leamington Spa, CV32 5SQ.

 

OR pay by Bank Transfer

HSBC Friends of Leamington Art Gallery  a/c 90360244 sort code 40-27-06 Reference – your name

 

If you pay by BT it is essential to let Judy know you have paid & where you are boarding the coach otherwise you won't be on the list!  

 

judyandtony@phonecoop.coop  or 423033

 

…............................................................................................................................................................

 

RUGBY ART GALLERY/ ASHBY MANOR HOUSE

 

Reserve …........ places at £38.00  each      Cheque for £.................. enclosed.

 

Name ….........................................................................................................................................

 

Phone/Mobile .................................................... Email....................................................................

 

Boarding coach at Newbold Comyn or Spa Centre …..........................................................................      

 

FLAG TALKS 2025/6

 

Talks held in Dormer Conference Centre, Dormer Place, Leamington Spa.  Admission £3 members and £5 guests which includes coffee/tea/biscuits.

 

14 OCTOBER 7.30pm

Jeff Watkin – Concealment & Deception: The Art of the Camoufleurs of Leamington Spa 1939-1945

 

 

18 NOVEMBER 7.30pm

Trudy Hillier – History of Pantomime

 

 

Wednesday 17 DECEMBER 2.30pm

Helen Castor – The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II

and Henry IV

 

 

Wednesday 14 JANUARY 2.30pm

Simon Gulliver – Arts and Crafts Gardens

 

 

Wednesday 18 FEBRUARY 2.30pm

Dr. Graham Twemlow – Chiltern Landscapes, Art & Design

in the Chilterns

 

 

Tuesday 17 MARCH 7.30pm

Lewis McNaught – Returning Heritage, Informing the Restitution Debate

 

 

Tuesday 14 APRIL 7.30pm A.G.M. followed by

Adam Wood – Victorian Crime in Leamington

 

 

GUESTS ARE VERY WELCOME

Our August newsletter is out now.

There’s plenty to catch up on in our August newsletter!

Paul Baker took over as chair earlier in the year and introduced himself and gave us dates for some of the Winter Talks Programme - final details of speakers etc to follow., but there is a Friday Focus on 12th September you might like to note as it will be held in the cinema at the Spa Centre, where a film showing the Bridgeman sculpture of the Unknown Refugee recently installed in the Jephson Gardens, along with short talks by Dr Jane Bridgeman, and Professor Michael. Film maker Andrew David Barker will also be there.

Another date for your diary! Flag will be at the Leamington History Group Heritage Day on 13th September in All Saints Church, between 10 am and 3 pm.

Other features in the newsletter are details and images of our trips this year; a review of Unravelling History: Unpicking the collections and reworking textile tranditions by Annabel Rainbow who co-curated the exhibition with Abigael Flack, Curator of Social History; and an update on gallery news from Chloe Johnson and Vicki Slade, Collections and Engagement Managers.

 Dates for your diary: 

Tuesday 14th October 2025 7.30pm

Tuesday 18th November 2025 7.30pm

Wednesday 17th December 2025 2.30pm 

 

Wednesday 14th January 2026 2.30pm

Wednesday 18th February 2026 230pm

Tuesday 17th March 2026 7.30pm

Tuesday 14th Aril 7.30pm

 

 

Our trip to Royal Holloway College, University of London

The Royal Holloway College was founded over 170 years ago by two Victorian social pioneers who wanted to make a difference and is formed from two colleges, Bedford College and Royal Holloway College, founded by Thomas and Jane Holloway.

The colleges were among the first place  in Britain where women could access higher education.

"Bedford College in central London opened its doors in 1849. It was the first higher education college in the UK for women and counts the novelist George Eliot and the first female doctor, Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, among its early students. 

In 1886, Royal Holloway College in Surrey was opened by Queen Victoria. By 1900, the colleges became part of the University of London, later merging in 1985 to form what is now Royal Holloway". 

Read more about the Flag trip below.

"Our trip to Royal Holloway College yesterday was a very interesting and enjoyable day. We had a guided tour of the founder's building and ornate Victorian chapel and the picture gallery where we had a lovely lunch followed by a talk on the paintings and finished up with tea and cake"!  (text and photos by Cherry)

 "Astonished"!

 

An amazing building!

A very enjoyable trip yesterday to Royal Holloway College, University of London.  Having been astonished by the building that greeted us on arrival the start of our tour, the Chapel, was even more stunning.  The excellent tour including the quads, Dining Room and Reading Room was full of information about the history of the college and buildings.

Finishing in the Picture Gallery with lunch and a talk about this unique collection of Victorian pictures collected for the college by its Founder, Thomas Holloway and his wife Jane.  The one picture we'll all remember is the one that is still covered, to this day, with a Union Jack flag during exams in the Picture Gallery! (Text by Flag Secretary)

 

Founder, Thomas Holloway and his wife Jane

 

More images of the day from Cherry.

 

Did someone mention tea and cake? 

 

 A better look at some of the paintings (image with permission)

 

The beautiful Chapel

 

 

Bit of a fabulous ceiling!

 

 

Outsider Art - by Flag Membership Secretary.

 

Outsider art reminds us that creativity is a birthright, not a career path.

I was reading about outsider art the other day on substack. It was very interesting.

Coined by artist Jean Dubuffet in the 1940s, art brut literally means “raw art.” It was about art made by people in asylums, prisons, or complete obscurity. People who probably didn’t even know they were making “art” at all. They were just doing it, creating something, anything, almost compulsively, obsessively. Sometimes with bottle caps. Sometimes with human hair. Sometimes with a thousand biro pens and a dream, or gluing matchsticks to a life-size papier-mâché giraffe in a garden shed in Norfolk. In other words, outsider art.

In a world where everything is curated, filtered, and optimized for engagement, outsider art is gloriously resistant to polish. It’s the antidote to art speak and the enemy of cool. It’s where sincerity still lives, sometimes in the form of an intricately carved wooden toaster that doubles as a shrine to a lost cat. And frankly, that’s beautiful.

Because maybe art doesn’t need to be clever. Or commercially viable. Or made in a Hackney studio with exposed brick and oat milk flat whites on tap. Maybe it just needs to be.

I sometimes think my daughter, who has a wonderful Fine Art degree, may have struggled with her tutors because, although none of us saw it at the time, what she was making might have been outsider art. Someone who carefully collects their own eyelashes and eyebrows, then uses them to create a tiny, painstaking self-portrait — that’s not just creative, it’s deeply personal. There was such quiet intensity in it, such focus, and not the faintest concern for whether it fit into anyone else’s idea of what art should be. Looking back, it makes perfect sense.

Giving people a title for what they do helps define them to others. Apparently, outsider art is the height of fashion, and museums are mounting major exhibitions. Collectors are shelling out silly money. Auction houses are whispering reverently over cracked canvases painted by people who didn’t even know about acrylics. The once-marginalised is now curated; it’s institutionalised and Instagrammed.

I do wonder if it is it still outsider art when it’s hanging next to a Hockney? Is it still rebellious or couldn’t-care-less when it’s being endorsed by the establishment it was supposedly outside of? I’m a bit confused to be honest!

Here’s a few links to some outsider artists if you’re interested.

• Henry Darger – Chicago janitor by day, creator of a 15,000-page fantasy epic by night. His world: part Victorian fairytale, part fever dream, part “should we be worried?”

• Judith Scott – Deaf, with Down syndrome, and institutionalised for decades, she made intricate cocoon-like sculptures from yarn and found objects.

• Madge Gill – A spiritualist who produced thousands of drawings, often guided (she claimed) by a spirit named Myrninerest. As you do.

• Howard Finster – A Baptist preacher who built his own garden museum filled with visions of Elvis, God, and aliens. Pretty standard, really.

Outsider art is what happens when you remove the polite conversation and gallery lighting from creativity.

So here’s to the garden shed geniuses, the obsessive scribblers, the glue-gun prophets. I’m off to carry on with my flowers. It gives one courage to just do stuff and stop worrying that it’s good enough for judgement.