| Dear LymSoc Member, Welcome to our “Save the Dates” notice for our full schedule of exciting and varied social events for our Social Programme for the year from Autumn 2025 – Summer 2026. As has become traditional, our first event of the season will be a “Private View” at St Barbe Museum of the Autumn Exhibition that is always the highlight of the year’s exhibition programme at St Barbe. This year’s blockbuster exhibition is called the “Life of the Fields”, which starts on the 10th of September. Please join us for an exclusive “Private View” of this amazing Exhibition on Wednesday the 8th of October 2025 Details below. Tickets Here Following this we have a full programme of talks and parties, including the usual Christmas Drinks Party and the Summer Garden Party. We very much hope that you will find time to come to some or all of these meetings and events. Due to alterations at the Lymington Centre, for some time we will only have the smaller McLellan Hall for most of our meetings so there may be some restrictions on numbers. Do please help by booking early to help us arrange the seating. If you see any mistakes in the dates or times of these events or clashes with other events, please do let me know. Kind regards Don Don Mackenzie Chair – The Lymington Society donald@donald-mackenzie.co.uk 07860 106120 |
| Wednesday 8th of October – 2025 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm Private View – “Life of the Fields” St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery Refreshments served from 6.30 pm Tickets – £6.00 (£7.00 for Guests) to include refreshments. on the door on TicketTailor Click Here for Tickets |
| Nick Schlee – Streatley Farm with a Swirl of Stubble © Nick Schlee |
| The Life of the Fields – St Barbe Museum St Barbe Museum is holding an amazing Exhibition this Autumn which starts on the 10th of September and which is called The Life of the Fields. The Life of the Fields is a unique exhibition examining artists’ representations of farming and farmed landscapes from 1900 to the present. It features important works on loan from Tate, the Royal Academy, Towner, Royal West of England Academy, Government Art Collection, Museum of English Rural Life and private collections. Farming accounts for around 70% of land use in England, so to portray the countryside was to portray aspects of agriculture. Some artists were primarily interested in these apparently timeless vistas, while others were conscious that the horse-powered, rotational farming methods that maintained such landscapes were disappearing as a new world was ushered in. Depictions of farmland were also bound up with ideas that the traditional patchwork of fields and woodland, scattered farmsteads and villages were quintessentially English, despite an increasingly urbanised population. Whether they intended it or not, artists capturing rural life during this period chronicled massive change in farming techniques and the appearance of the countryside. |
| Friday 14th of November – 2025 6:30 PM for 7:00 PM Illustrated Talk – James Taylor Grace Darling and the Fine Art of Saving Lives at Sea The McLellan Hall – The Lymington Centre Refreshments served from 6.30 pm Cost £6.00 (£7.00 Guests) to include refreshments. Tickets on the door or on TicketTailor. Click Here for Tickets |
| Grace Darling and the Fine Art of Saving Lives at Sea Grace Darling (1815–1842) was a British national heroine and lighthouse keeper’s daughter, who became famous for rowing with her father, William, through a severe storm in 1838 to rescue nine survivors from the shipwrecked steamship Forfarshire. Her courageous act earned her national fame, numerous honours, and inspired many works of art. She became the ‘poster girl’ of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and was the first woman to be awarded their medal for gallantry. After her death from tuberculosis at age 26, a monument was erected in her honor in her hometown of Bamburgh, Northumberland. Discover more about her bravery and her short life on the Brownsman and Longstone Lighthouses, alongside the artistic contribution that helped to keep her in the public eye. Dr James Taylor MA (Hons) FRSA studied at the Universities of St. Andrews, Manchester and Sussex. He is a former specialist in Victorian paintings at Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers; a curator of paintings, drawings and prints and contributor to various exhibitions and galleries at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; and from 1999 an independent author, award-winning lecturer and exhibition organiser. He guest curated Dazzle – Disguise & Disruption in War & Art at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington in 2018. |
| Thursday 18th of December – 2025 Lymington Society Christmas Drinks Party 6.00 PM – St Thomas Church Hall Tickets £10.00 (Guests £11.00) online only at TicketTailor Click Here for Christmas Party Tickets |
| Lymington Society Christmas Drinks Party After last year’s very successful party, this year we are going again to the Church Hall of St Thomas Church for our annual Christmas Drinks Party. Please come along and kick off your Christmas in great style at the Lymington Society Christmas Party, viewed by many as the most exciting Christmas Party in Lymington. Always a popular event, the Christmas Party is your chance to meet other members and to chat to LymSoc Committee members and local Councillors about the ongoing local matters of concern. As usual the catering will be provided by outstanding local caterer Di Morley who produces the most delicious canapes. Make a date to join us for this popular event in the LymSoc calendar. |
| Friday 6th February 2025. Illustrated Talk – 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm Phillip St Lawrence – “‘Affairs that Rocked a Nation” The McLellan Hall – The Lymington Centre Refreshments served from 6.30 pm – Cost £6.00 to include refreshments. (£7.00 for Guests) Tickets on the door or on TicketTailor Click Here for Tickets |
| Lady Emma Hamilton and Christine Keeler |
| Friday the 13th of March – 2026 7.00 pm for 7.30 pm Lymington Society Annual General Meeting. The McLellan Hall – The Lymington Centre. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Followed by an Illustrated Talk by Dr Charles Rees ” Richard the 3rd and his Mother” |
| Lymington Society Annual General Meeting Members are invited to attend the AGM of the Society where the Chair will present a Report on the activities of the last year since the previous AGM. Following this, members will be invited to vote on the appointment of the officers of the society and to vote for the members of the Executive Committee. There will then be the usual chance for members to ask questions and have their input into the future priorities for the next year’s activities. Please do come along to show your support and find our what your Society is doing, both for its members and the town of Lymington and Pennington |
Following the AGM – An Illustrated Talk by Dr Charles Rees
“Richard the III and his Mother”
| Richard the 3rd’s Mother Cecily Neville and her two Sisters Richard III has been in the news since his body was recovered from the Leicester Social Services car park in 2012. His real story is totally different from the Shakespeare calumny. However, most people are not necessarily interested in hearing the real story of his life, so Charles has expanded it to include the story of his mother and her children. Richard III’s mother was Cecily Neville, the powerful Duchess of York and matriarch of the House of York. She was the wife of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and mother to two kings: Edward IV and Richard III. As the wife of Richard, Duke of York, and mother to kings Edward IV and Richard III, she was a central figure in the House of York. She was a powerful and influential women during the Wars of the Roses, a tumultuous period of English history, navigating the conflicts between the Yorkist and Lancastrian families. She gave birth to at least 12 christened children, of which 7 survived. 3 were duchesses, 2 were kings, one son killed another and 2 died in battle. In her later life, Cecily lived to see her son Richard III become king and, sadly, witnessed his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth. When Richard died at Bosworth she had only 2 daughters left and was 70. When she died at the age of 80 She had nearly 100 estates. Charles will tell us about the life and times of both Richard and Cecily, his powerful and influential mother. |
| Friday 24th April 2026 – 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm Illustrated Talk by Peter Bell “The Camino del Norte Pilgrimage” Refreshments served from 6.30 pm – Cost £6.00 to include refreshments. (£7.00 for Guests). Tickets on the door or on TicketTailor Click here for tickets |
| Peter and Barnaby Bell on the Camino del Norte Pilgrimage |
| Starting in April 2024, Lymington resident and accomplished sailor Peter Bell and his son Barnaby undertook the arduous 5-week pilgrimage known as the Camino del Norte, or “Northern Way”, in northern Spain. This is a coastal pilgrimage route running from Irun in Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela, known for its dramatic scenery, challenging hilly terrain, and vibrant Basque and Cantabrian culture, offering pilgrims a mix of beaches, cliffs, and mountains. At approximately 825 kilometres (508 miles) long, it is one of the many historical routes of the Camino de Santiago, (the Way of St James), historically used when other route were dangerous due to Muslim occupation. Created and established in the beginning of the 9th century, following the discovery of the relics of “Saint James the Great”, the Way of St. James became a major pilgrimage route of medieval Christianity from the 10th century onwards. Walking on average 25 Km or more a day, the pilgrimage was both a physical and mental challenge, as well as a chance for father and son bonding. Peter will tell us something of the history of this famous pilgrimage route, as well as tell us about the challenges of walking over 500 miles in 5 weeks and the experiences they had along the way |
| Thursday the 28th May 2026 6.00 – 8.00 PM. The Lymington Society Summer Garden Party. 6, Fairfield Close, Lymington. Tickets are £10.00 for Members and £11.00 for Guests Tickets will only available on Ticket Tailor Click here for Tickets |
| Garden of Orchard House, 6, Fairfield Close, Lymington. |
| By kind permission of LymSoc member Lucy Elliott and her partner Stephen Rodwell, the Summer Garden Party will be held in the simply stunning gardens of 6, Fairfield Close, Lymington. SO41 3NP. The 1/2 acre garden (just behind the M&S car park) stands on the original orchard of ‘Fairfield House’ and is partly surrounded nine, 500 year old yew trees and three oak trees. It was professionally landscaped in the 1950s and includes many specimen shrubs such as acers, rhododendron, hydrangeas, azaleas and camellias. The garden is both formal (rose/iris/peony beds) and informal, with a small light-filled woodland area left to naturalise. Please join us for a delightful summer’s garden party with Pimms, Prosecco and fantastic canapes in this beautiful garden, just a short walk from the High Street. |
The Lymington Society 