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Along a Green Lane Sometime Somewhere - Valerie Belsey
Valerie Belsey invites you to join her to learn about the extraordinary network of green lanes that wind around South Devon and the stories that they tell. After a short introduction, she will lead a walk from The Flavel to discover the green lanes that we can access locally.
Valerie Belsey is the author of " Exploring Green Lanes in the South Hams and the stories they tell." Published in 2023 and in its 3rd edition since 2001. She worked for SHDC in the coast and countryside dept and in the Highways dept of DCC always on green lanes and road history.
Valerie’s new book "Along a Green Lane Sometime Somewhere" will be out at the end of the year and tells how by studying one lane - the one which runs through the Green Lanes Centre - you can find out about many more. One Lane - Many Lives.
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Continuity and Transformation in Western Art
Continuity and Transformation in Western Art
Medieval to the Modern period
Thirteenth to the Eighteenth Century
How did art both mirror and shape the great transformations of European history? This course invites learners on a journey through five centuries of Western art, from the soaring cathedrals of the Gothic age to the elegance of the Enlightenment. Along the way, you will encounter masterpieces that reveal how artists responded to questions of faith, power, identity, and knowledge—and how their works reshaped the very way people saw the world.
Each week focuses on a pivotal moment, moving from the grandeur of thirteenth-century sacred art to the realism of Dutch domestic interiors, from the drama of Baroque spectacle to the clarity of Enlightenment classicism. The course combines lectures with lively discussion of key readings, encouraging you to think critically about how art reflects cultural values while also driving social and intellectual change.
What makes this course distinctive is its dual emphasis: you will learn to analyse visual form with precision while also situating works of art within their historical and philosophical contexts. By the end, you will not only recognize the major styles—Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical—but also understand the debates and ideas that shaped their creation.
Whether you are drawn to the grandeur of Michelangelo, the luminous colours of Venetian painting, the quiet realism of Vermeer, or the rational elegance of the Enlightenment, this course offers a chance to engage deeply with the art that helped define Western culture.
Weekly Outline
• Week 1: The Church Triumphant: Sacred Authority, Visual Culture, and the Gothic Imagination in the Thirteenth Century
• Week 2: Art and Social Identity: Courtiers, Burghers, and the Shifting Patronage of the Fourteenth Century; The Conquest of Reality: Naturalism and Devotional Experience in the Early Fifteenth Century
• Week 3: Tradition and Innovation I: Humanism, Classicism, and Artistic Experimentation in Later Fifteenth-Century Italy; Tradition and Innovation II: Devotion, Detail, and Symbolism in Fifteenth-Century Northern Europe
• Week 4: Harmony Attained: Idealism, Proportion, and Intellectual Synthesis in Tuscany and Rome, Early Sixteenth Century; Light and Colour: Sensuous Aesthetics and the Poetics of Vision in Venice and Northern Italy
• Week 5: The New Learning Spreads: Humanist Ideals, Reformation Culture, and the Visual Arts in Germany and the Netherlands
• Week 6: A Crisis of Art: Mannerism, Religious Upheaval, and the Challenge to Classical Norms in Late Sixteenth-Century Europe
• Week 7: Vision and Visions: Spirituality, Spectacle, and the Catholic Imagination in Early Seventeenth-Century Europe
• Week 8: The Mirror of Nature: Realism, Domesticity, and the Rise of a Bourgeois Aesthetic in Seventeenth-Century Holland
• Week 9: Power and Glory I: The Papacy, Absolutism, and the Theatrics of Power in Seventeenth-Century Italy; Power and Glory II: Monumentality, Court Culture, and Artistic Display in France, Germany, and Austria, 17th–18th Centuries
• Week 10: The Age of Reason: Enlightenment Thought, Neoclassicism, and the Reconfiguration of Art in Eighteenth-Century England and France
Practical Information
• Readings: All required readings will be provided, both in print and electronically, ensuring learners have easy access to the material.
• Course Fee: The cost for the full 10-week course is £300, payable by the first week
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• Delivery: The course will be taught by Dr. Nicci Wakeham in Dartmouth.
• Schedule: Dates and times are as follows:
2026 - September 21st, October 5th and 19th, November 2nd, 16th and 30th, December 14th
2027 - January 4th and 18th, and final session on February 1st.
• Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
• The course Fee: £300, to be paid by the 1st September. Please do use the booking form on my website (drnicciwakeham.uk), you can also pay directly on the site. If you are unable to do so, please post your details to the address below and I will send out a booking form. Payment can be made on the website or by cheque: N Wakeham, and posted to Tangles, Brixton, PL8 2AH.
Contact Information
• Tutor: Dr Nicola Wakeham
• Mobile: 07818 662661 – please do leave a message with your number and I will return your call
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Crime Writers’ Panel
These crime writers have very different approaches to their writing, and it will be interesting to hear how they go about their craft and debate key issues.
Jane Corry is the queen of domestic suspense, now an eight-time Sunday Times bestseller. Her latest book, My Sister’s Secret, is a gripping and emotional suspense about two sisters and the dark past that binds them. The sisters are bound by a secret that could tear them apart…
Jane began her career in journalism, working primarily for women’s magazines, while writing romantic fiction.
Stephanie Austin has created her heroine Juno Browne, a self-proclaimed domestic goddess and reluctant antique shop owner, whose adventures are set in Ashburton on the edge of Dartmoor. There are now nine books in the Juno Browne series, with book ten, 'A Dartmoor Christmas Card Murder', due out in October. Stephanie began her career as a teacher, but has also worked as an artist, an astrologer and has dabbled in antiques.
Martin Hesp’s new series begins with The Cornish Snapper: The Granite Mystery, in which Martin introduces Lammoran and Hamilton—a dynamic duo reminiscent of Holmes and Watson. Drawing on his own experiences in the newsroom, he explores the intersection of investigative grit and the art of photography. Martin has spent over 50 years at the sharp end of British journalism, starting his career as a junior reporter at 17 and eventually becoming the Senior Feature Writer and Columnist for the Western Morning News and Western Daily Press.
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Head Over Skis : Sophie Davies
Sophie Davies is a romance author based in West Sussex, who studied English literature at the University of Exeter, and has been working in the publishing industry ever since.
She began posting about her writing journey on TikTok in 2023, which has led to her meeting so many other amazing writers, some of whom have become her closest friends.
Head Over Skis is Sophie’s debut novel.
Head Over Skis is a spicy rom com for fans of Hannah Grace, Catherine Walsh and Lindsey Kelk.
One ex
One ski-instructor
And one holiday that's about to go off-piste...
The trip finally made it out of the group chat! Lottie and her friends have been planning – and saving – for their ski trip for ages and everything is going to be perfect. Until it isn’t.
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I Wanna Be Loved By You - Andrew Wilson Book Launch
This year Marilyn Monroe turns 100. As a centennial tribute, award-winning biographer, Andrew Wilson, will talk about his biography: I Wanna Be Loved By You, followed by Q&A and book signing.
Dreamer. Bombshell. Icon.
Featuring a wealth of unpublished material, Andrew Wilson’s biography of Marilyn Monroe presents the actress in a startling new light.
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, she had an uncertain and unforgiving upbringing with a mentally ill mother, an absent father and cruel foster parents. She would dream about Hollywood, and she transformed herself into the ultimate goddess of the silver screen; her image has been branded into the collective consciousness. Men lusted after her, and women wanted to be her. All her life, she just wanted to be loved.
Marilyn Monroe was more than just a goddess of the screen. She was highly intelligent and well-read, and formed long-term friendships with poets, philosophers, playwrights and political activists, such as with the avant-garde poet Edith Sitwell. After training with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, she worked hard to dismantle the common perception that she was nothing but a dumb blonde.
About the author:
Andrew Wilson is an award-winning biographer, novelist and journalist. In 2003, his first book, Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith (Bloomsbury) won an Edgar Allan Poe Award and the LAMBDA Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize.
Since then, he has written the biographies of Harold Robbins: The Man Who Invented Sex, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted, Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin, and the group biography, Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived.
'Wilson is an articulate and gentle man, with a mind committed to evidence and the demeanour of someone likely to give you a fair shake. Watching him reminds you that of all the tricks in a biographer s bag, equanimity and respect for an interviewee's first impressions are indispensable' DAILY TELEGRAPH
There is a free screening of one of Marilyn’s funniest and finest movies ‘Some Like it Hot’ in the auditorium following this talk.
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Master and Cartographer : Alan Harper
Alan Harper is an RYA Yacht Master, maritime journalist, and magazine editor, and has contributed articles on yachting, aviation, seamanship, navigation and travel to publications throughout the English-speaking world. His previous books include Waiting for Buddy Guy: Chicago Blues at the
Crossroads, which won the ASCAP Foundation Award and was a Living Blues
book of the year.
Alan will be talking about his latest book: Master and Cartographer, which follows the adventurous life of Captain Greenvile Collins (1643-94). His seafaring voyages took him from Patagonia to the Arctic, into battles against Dutch men of war and Barbary corsairs, and to the slave markets and Silk Road ports of the Mediterranean. A scientific navigator, his professional drive drew him to Shetland, the Scilly Isles and all points in between, as he undertook the most ambitious survey of the British coastline yet attempted, and which helped change the course of history.
This fascinating story is a must for those interested in adventures at sea and all things maritime.
Alan will be in conversation with Tim Wiltshire.
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Meg Clothier : The Shipping Forecast
There’s a sea lover in every Brit.
The Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 has been keeping people in tune with the gloriously fickle British weather for a century, and capturing our hearts and imaginations along the way.
Celebrating a hundred years since the first broadcast, this book takes you to the heart of what the Shipping Forecast means to us as a nation. Each of the ten chapters brings you on a fascinating exploration of a different area of our British maritime history, from stormy weather up above to the seabed far below, and from fishing boats and battleships to the songs and poems inspired by the forecast.
This joyous book invites you to sail away into the enchanting world of the forecast, and is the perfect companion for anyone curious about our great British skies and seas.
Meg Clothier studied Classics at Cambridge, sailed from England to Alaska and worked as a journalist in London and Moscow. She has published three historical novels and Sea Fever: A Seaside Companion, a book full of marine lore and seaside charm, with her brother, Chris. She lives on the sunny side of the Quantock Hills with her husband, two children and an improbable number of vegetables.
Meg Clothier will be in conversation with Georgina Wiltshire.
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NT Live: The Misanthrope (15)
The Misanthrope
by Martin Crimp after Molière
directed by Indhu Rubasingham
Award-winner Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) plays the title role in this razor-sharp reimagining of Molière’s classic dark comedy.
Telling the truth isn’t always that simple. Alice, a brilliant novelist, despises the carefully constructed lies of modern society. But the more she challenges those around her, the fiercer the backlash becomes. Soon, she must confront the price of speaking her truth in a world that would rather silence her.
Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Indhu Rubasingham directs Martin Crimp’s (Cyrano de Bergerac) highly anticipated play.
Tuesday 22nd September
Tickets £18/£11
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The Incomer (15)
Set on a remote Scottish island, two siblings survive by hunting seabirds, retelling the stories of their ancestors, and defending the isle from dreaded ‘Incomers’. Their world is upended with the arrival of an awkward council worker who has come to uproot them from their homeland.
STARRING
Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin, Grant O’Rourke, Emun Elliott, Michelle Gomez, with John Hannah
Tickets £9 Adults £6.20 Under 16’s
All tickets include a venue levy £2 per adult and £1.50 under 16’s
