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SEPTEMBER 2016 - OUTING TO THE ARCADIAN THAMES In fine late-summer sunshine a group of some twenty Friends and supporters gathered at Ham House near Richmond for a leisurely walk along the banks of the 'Arcadian' Thames. Ham House with its formal gardens (see photograph, right) and vistas rolling out into the surrounding suburban coun...
SEPTEMBER 2016 - WORKING HOLIDAY AT KRÁSNÝ DVŮR A group of UK and Czech volunteers spent a week working to restore features in the famous landscape park at Krásný Dvůr in western Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic. This is one of the first landscape gardens on the Continent in the English style, and was much admired by Goethe. In glorious, h...
On 10 November 2016 Dr. Peter Cannon-Brookes, who knew Franta Bělský (who died in 2000) and Irena Sedlecká over a long period of time, gave a talk at the Slovak Embassy on the work of these two portrait sculptors of Czech origin, who came to England in 1948 and 1967 respectively and married each other in 1997. Both were trained in the Central Europ...
August 2016 - A grant to Skanzen Chanovice Some building types get much more exposure when it comes to saving a nation’s heritage whilst others receive scant attention. Rural agricultural buildings especially belong to this group. They are often very rare because they are undervalued and many were destroyed in the days of rural collectivisation. Th...
July 2016 - A grant to St James's Church, Bedřichův Světec In the rural unsung areas of the Czech Republic small groups are trying to reclaim their local heritage. Like the Zámek at Čečovice and St Nicholas's Church at Petrovice, which we reported on in our last Newsletter, the local action group is restoring the church for community use. Although ...
July 2016 - A grant to the Probošt House, Vyšehrad, Prague Close to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul and the National Cemetery, the Probošt House, now occupied by a kindergarten, has within it some fine early-18th-century frescoes. These are ‘listed’ and have been conserved. The windows, replaced in the 1980s, were sub-standard and are now in ve...
July 2016 - A grant towards the adaptation of the Hussite Church in Prague Smíchov The Czechoslovak Hussite Church as an institution was founded on 25th July 1920 and gave Prague several significant and interesting buildings, mostly in the Modernist architectural style. Amongst these is the property of the Jan Hus Congregation in Smíchov, whose out...
On 27th September 2016 Dr. Mark Whelan, a Teaching Fellow at Royal Holloway, part of the University of London, gave a very lively lecture at the Slovak Embassy London about the context and consequences of the 1620 Battle of the White Mountain (a hill outside Prague) in which the forces of the Catholic Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand the Second routed th...
June 2016 - WORKING HOLIDAY The Friends' working holiday at Žďár nad Sázavou included maintenance of the Lower Cemetery (which was in fact never used for burials) and ran 11th-18th June. The site was built by the famous Baroque architect J. B. Santini-Aichel, and the work means that it can now be opened to the public. Tasks involved simple bu...
May 2016 - The Trio Soane gave a very enjoyable recital at the Embassy of the Slovak Republic on Thursday 19th May. Their programme skilfully blended Viennese classicism (Beethoven - Piano Trio no. 2) with works from the Czech repertoire, Dvořák's Mazurek and Josef Suk's Song of Love for violin and piano, and Martinů's Variations on a Theme of Ross...
