I am also a cultural lecturer, focused primarily on Chatsworth and its collections, landscape and people. In addition, I am the part-time Communications & Memberships officer for The Guild of St George, the arts charity set up by John Ruskin in the 19th century. I sometimes take on other work helping arts, tourism and heritage places and organisations with their communications, anything from press or marketing to interpretation. Please use the contact form here if you want to have a conversation about any of these areas of existing or potential work.

LECTURES

I give illustrated digital lectures about Chatsworth, the historic house, collection and estate in Derbyshire’s Peak District. I'm always happy to consider lecture and Study Day bookings, subject to my diary commitments; please use the contact form if you want to get in touch, and I can send over the synopses and other details of the lectures I give. 

I fell in love with a photograph of Chatsworth when I was 12 and visited for the first time as a teenager.  I then worked there for 19 years, from 1991 to 2010, starting with a summer job car parking and lavatory cleaning, and ending up as their first Head of Communications. My first bosses were the 11th Duke of Devonshire, Andrew and his wife Deborah (famous in her own right as ‘Debo’, the youngest of the six Mitford sisters), and then their son Stoker, the current Duke and his wife Amanda, and in that time I became immersed in the place; the house itself, its collections, landscape and history. With my lectures, which I give to members of The Arts Society (formerly NADFAS) around the UK, I hope to pass on my life-long passion for this beautiful place. 

In 2017 I added a new lecture about Debo, who died in 2014; over many years, she was much more than a boss to me; patron, friend, teacher, supporter and someone I came to admire deeply; in fact she was possibly the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. For the centenary of her birth, on 31 March 2020, I wrote some impressions and memories of her sparked by a set of photographs, which you can read here.

Myself and Debo

Communications and marketing for the heritage, arts and tourism sectors:

With more than 30 years experience working in heritage and the arts, at Chatsworth, Nottingham Playhouse and Music in the Round, I occasionally take on freelance projects helping organisations with their communications, marketing and interpretation.

I am also on the Board of three arts charities; Five Senses Music,  Opera on Location and the Dovedale Arts Festival