The Ardgowan Estate, Inverkip, Scotland. Corporate hospitality, functions, events and horse livery services.

Ardgowan, a stunning late 18th-century Palladian house on the Firth of Clyde, forty minutes’ drive west of Glasgow, is the setting for three residential programmes of lectures, demonstrations and visits in 2009.

Courses held in 2009 included the following

Dumfries House and the Scottish Enlightenment
The Art of Dining at Ardgowan: Georgian Food and Drink in conjunction with Christopher Hartop

Educational Study Courses

In-depth eight-day courses are provided at Ardgowan to study the architecture, art collections and patterns of patronage in Scotland. Lucinda Shaw Stewart and her sister Caroline Knight, both art and architectural historians, conduct these programmes aided by specialist lecturers. Introductory illustrated talks are followed by visits to castles and houses – including many private “non-open” ones – museums and art galleries. The groups – usually numbering around 18 – stay at Ardgowan in a houseparty atmosphere with the opportunity to explore the house and collection and the gardens at will. Archive material and an extensive library are on offer to the guests.

A second part of each course is centred elsewhere in Scotland: Edinburgh and the Borders, or Fife and the north-east, for example, in order to visit and study further properties.

These informative courses teach the history of Scotland, the development of architecture and the collecting and commissioning of pictures and decorative arts putting them in an historical context.

Groups who have recently visited Ardgowan include:

The Kenmore Association, Virginia
Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York
The World Monument Fund Britain
The English Speaking Union, New Orleans branch
The Harvard University Art Museum

Speakers for 2009 included

Ivan Day has an international reputation for his research on British and European culinary history. He is also a gifted professional cook and confectioner, noted particularly for his recreations of meals and table settings which have been exhibited in many museums. He has written a number of books and is currently working on Cookery in Europe 1650–1850.

Nichola Fletcher, author of the recent bestseller Charlemagne’s Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting, is currently working on a book about caviar. She is a noted expert on venison and its history and preparation, having pioneered Europe’s first deer farm in Scotland.

Christopher Hartop FSA is a well-known author and lecturer on art, architecture and the history of dining. His books include The Huguenot Legacy: English Silver 1680–1760 (1996), Royal Goldsmiths (2005), and A Noble Feast (2006). He was Executive Vice President of Christie’s New York until 1999. He is Chairman of the Silver Society.

David Jones is Honorary Keeper of Furniture at Dumfries House, where he has worked on the collection since the early 1990s. He has taught Furniture History at the University of St Andrews for twenty-six years and is a leading academic authority on the subject. He edits the academic journal Regional Furniture and sits on various curatorial panels including the National Trust for Scotland, Hopetoun House and Paxton House.

Caroline Knight FSA is an independent lecturer in British architectural history, specializing in the 16th–18th centuries. She leads a course at the V&A, "The Visual Arts in Europe: High Renaissance to Baroque, 1500–1720". She has written a two-volume history of Kensington Palace and a book, London’s Country Houses, published in 2009, on the architectural and social history of 16th–18th-century villas round London as well as numerous articles and has contributed to two books on architectural and social history.

Cindy Shaw Stewart has lectured widely on the history of country houses and their interiors and furniture. When her marriage to the late Sir Houston Shaw Stewart brought her to Ardgowan, she joined the Executive of the National Trust for Scotland. She is a Sir William Burrell Trustee (Burrell Collection), and is also currently a trustee of the Chatsworth House Trust, the Royal Collection and NADFAS, and served on the regional committee for Dumfries House.

Dr Duncan Thomson was Keeper of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery from 1982 to 1997, where he curated the major Raeburn exhibition which was shown in Edinburgh and London. He has published a number of books and exhibition catalogues over the years on both historical and contemporary art and is currently writing a history of the Portrait Gallery, to be published in 2011. From 2003 he has been an Honorary Fellow of the School of Arts, Culture and Environment in the University of Edinburgh.

For more information on these and future courses, please contact us on +44 (0)1475 521656