There is no more extraordinary story in Wiltshire's Victorian history than that of the Grittleton estate, created by Joseph Neeld with the enormous inheritance that fell to him in 1828 from his great-uncle, Philip Rundell, silversmith to George IV. Over less than three decades he built an unforgettable country house, with its stables, lodges and gardens, rebuilt several surrounding villages with farmhouses and cottages for his tenants, new schools and churches. Julian Orbach's lecture will tell the story, illustrated with the buildings mostly designed by Neeld's architect, James Thomson.

Biography: Julian Orbach

Julian Orbach is an architectural historian who revised Sir Nikolaus Pevsner's Buildings of England volumes for Wiltshire (2019) and Somerset South & West (2014) and is co-author with Timothy Mowl of Unbuilt Bath, 2023.