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Pictures and Postcards: Beckford’s Souvenirs
EXHIBITION: William Beckford spent a lifetime travelling Europe, visiting famous cites and exploring unusual landscapes. Every destination saw new items enter his collection and every journey resulted in new writings and ideas. He recorded these travels in words but also in images, through artists commissioned to travel with him, or sketches in his own had. …
Arrange your own Collection
Free Family holiday activity for 25th and 26th May and 1st and 2nd June “Everything depends on the way objects are placed, and where. Horrors in one place discount beauties in another.” William Beckford, 1822 William Beckford was an important collector of art who liked to change the displays of his beautiful objects regularly. Have…
Arrange your own Collection
Free Family holiday activity for 25th and 26th May and 1st and 2nd June “Everything depends on the way objects are placed, and where. Horrors in one place discount beauties in another.” William Beckford, 1822 William Beckford was an important collector of art who liked to change the displays of his beautiful objects regularly. Have…
Arrange your own Collection
Free Family holiday activity for 25th and 26th May and 1st and 2nd June “Everything depends on the way objects are placed, and where. Horrors in one place discount beauties in another.” William Beckford, 1822 William Beckford was an important collector of art who liked to change the displays of his beautiful objects regularly. Have…
Beckford Book Group: ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca, written in 1938, contains the traditional Gothic qualities of a disturbing atmosphere, a carefully described landscape and setting, a sense of the uncanny and the impression that events are out of kilter with the rational world. On the surface, this novel may appear as little more than a beautifully written, dark romance and yet, when…
Summer spirals
Climb the 154 steps of our spiral staircase to admire the view from the top of the tower. Find out why it's pink and why it's called cantilevered, then make your own decorative spiral to display at home. This is a free activity included with normal admission., so do drop in on any of these…
Beckford Book Group: ‘Vathek’
Beckford's Gothic novel, Vathek, an Arabian tale, was originally written in French when the author was 21. It is the story of Caliph Vathek, whose eye can kill at a glance, who makes a pact with the Devil, Eblis. But why is it classified as Gothic literature? The literary genre called Gothic draws its name…
When Beckford came to visit: the literary, aesthetic and personal ramifications of a weekend at Powderham, 1784
The Beckford Birthday Lecture. Charlie Courtenay, Earl of Devon, will discuss the intimate relationship between William Beckford and William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay. William Courtenay was discredited in Charlie's youth as a flamboyant spendthrift, who fled England in disgrace pursued by creditors – never to return. Recent research has revealed a much more complex man, of…
Cemetery Twilight Tour
Join Courtney Fleming, the Tower's Manager, on a tour of Lansdown Cemetery, once William Beckford’s beautiful garden surrounding the Tower and where Beckford himself is buried. William Beckford had been buried in Bath Abbey Cemetery in 1844 but, at the instigation of one of his daughters, Lady Hamilton, the tomb was transported to the newly-created…
Hallowe’en Twilight Tour of Lansdown Cemetery
Join Courtney Fleming, the Tower's Manager, on a spooky tour of Lansdown Cemetery, once William Beckford’s beautiful garden surrounding the Tower and where Beckford himself is buried. William Beckford had been buried in Bath Abbey Cemetery in 1844 but, at the instigation of one of his daughters, Lady Hamilton, the tomb was transported to the…