The Royal Oak Foundation

12/11/2025

Dont miss out! Join The Royal Oak Foundation and for "Fred Astaire in London" with .

December 15 at 6:00 pm in Los Angeles - exclusively in-person. Registration link in bio

12/05/2025

Exclusively in Los Angeles!

From 1922 to 1932, Fred Astaire and his sister Adele captivated London audiences in popular West End musicals, sparking a sensation so intense that critics dubbed it "Astairia." Join  & in Los Angeles for a lecture on Astaire’s life in England and the influence it had on his legendary career presented by

Visit Linktree in bio for more information and to register.

09/18/2024

Royal Oakis delighted to present a talk by British author, designer, and global humanitarian India Hicks! Based on her new book, India will talk about her mother, Lady Pamela Hicks (née Mountbatten), who served as a witness to key moments in British royal history. Monday, September 30 at 6:15 pm in NYC.

Book is available for purchase and signing at the lecture.

For more information or to purchase tickets visit the events link in our bio or call 212-480-2889, x200. Use code IG$5 to get $5 off the ticket price.

06/12/2024

Join Royal Oak & the Met Museum in Egypt in 2025! Egypt & the Nile: A Journey into Antiquity Aboard Sanctuary Sun Boat III

February 26 – March 9, 2025 (link in bio)

Highlights Include:

Sail through 5,000 years of Egyptian history on this extraordinary 10-night journey, featuring a four-night Nile River cruise aboard the deluxe Sanctuary Sun Boat III.

Stand in awe before the legendary Great Pyramids and enjoy private access to the Great Sphinx, venturing beyond the crowd barriers to fully appreciate this colossal ancient statue.

Be among the first travelers to visit the eagerly awaited Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts and a complete gathering of Tutankhamun treasures.

These are just a few of the incredible once-in-a-lifetime experiences of this trip.

04/19/2021

💐 Explore Gorgeous Gardens From Around the World!

Drawing from her new book The Naturally Beautiful Garden: Designs That Engage with Wildlife and Nature (Rizzoli, April 2021), former Country Life Gardens Editor Kathryn Bradley-Hole will consider ‘what makes a naturally beautiful garden?’ Interest in growing plants and creating attractive spaces that support pollinators, birds, and other wildlife is a recurrent theme in garden-making today. And the result is GORGEOUS!

From garden paths on the cliff tops of Greece, to sleepy Dorset gardens; from 21st-century public green spaces to modern cottage gardens: and from large country gardens to intimate city courtyards, Kathryn will illustrate stunning gardens that exemplify these principles from the UK and across the globe.

🗓 Watch LIVE on April 20 at 2:00p.m. (EDT) or RENT the recording for 5 days.

📖 BUY THE BOOK FOR 15% OFF AT RIZZOLI BOOKSTORE:
Use code NATURALLYBEAUTIFUL at checkout.

https://www.rizzolibookstore.com/naturally-beautiful-garden-designs-engage-wildlife-and-nature

(Discount only available from 4/20-4/25)

02/09/2021

✨ Register for our upcoming lecture: Under the Caribbean Sun: Victorian Art at the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico

📚 The Museo de Arte de Ponce holds the most important and, perhaps, the most unexpected collection of Victorian art outside the UK.

Founded in 1959, it highlights icons of British painting, such as Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Flaming June and Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones’s monumental masterpiece, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon.

This lecture will open the doors of a Caribbean treasure trove, telling the extraordinary story of how over 4,500 works of art crossed the Atlantic to Puerto Rico.

In the Modernist, middle decades of the twentieth century, Victorian art was firmly out of fashion. Paintings, once prized at London’s Royal Academy and elsewhere, were practically discarded: The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon was so carelessly hung in Christie’s saleroom in St. James’s that it actually fell off the wall, and Flaming June sold, at one point, for only £50. Luis A. Ferré, the Governor of Puerto Rico, saw the opportunity.

Join Vanity Fair and Country Life contributor Patrick Monahan for a virtual tour of this exceptional collection…and a bit of British art under the Caribbean sun!

💻 LIVE
Tuesday, February 16 at 6:00 pm (EST)
Online via Zoom Webinar

📀 RENT
Rent the recorded lecture to watch at your leisure between Wednesday, February 17 and Sunday, February 21

➡️ Link to the event: https://fb.me/e/4OvcxJK5Z

📷 All Pictures: © Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico
1 - Sir Frederic Leighton Flaming June
2 - Museo de Arte de Ponce
3 - Edward Burne-Jones, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon

06/10/2020

This week, we are spotlighting Mottisfont in Hampshire

Originally a Priory, Mottisfont was converted into a house by William Sandys, Henry VIII’s Lord Chamberlain, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The building was extensively altered in the 1740s by an unidentified architect for Sir Richard Mill; it was sold in 1934 to a great-grandson of the 6th Duke of Bedford, Gilbert Russell, who – with his wife Maud – rearranged the interior, and commissioned a series of trompe-l’oeil murals from Rex Whistler in 1938-9. Whistler’s murals imitate Gothic plasterwork and can be seen in the drawing room. There is also a groin-vaulted medieval cellarium.

Mottisfont is world-renowned for its gardens

The walled gardens are filled with heavenly fragrance and color from thousands of roses in early summer. It is home to the National Collection of pre-1900 old-fashioned roses, which reach their peak in June. Over five hundred varieties put on an annual display which draws visitors from all over the world.

Created by Graham Stuart Thomas - one of the most important figures in 20th-century British horticulture - in the 1970s, the walled gardens were chosen to house many varieties that may otherwise have been lost. Some varieties are so rare that it's possible it has the only stock in existence.

Unlike modern species, old-fashioned roses tend to flower just once a year, so their full summer blooming is an extraordinary annual sight. Visitors can discover varieties such as Malmaison – a sumptuous pale pink bourbon rose inspired by the Empress Josephine’s famous garden – and delicate Chinese tea roses in shades of cream, pink and red.

The light crimson and deeply scented shrub Rosa gallica officinalis was brought to England from Persia by the Crusaders, and there are other hybrids so ancient that they are prehistoric.

05/20/2020

The laburnum arch at the National Trust’s world famous Bodnant Garden in Conwy has produced its earliest blooms for a decade, following a record amount of sunshine in April and May. The 55m-long archway – believed to be the longest and oldest of its kind in Britain – is the most anticipated highlight in the garden’s calendar.

05/19/2020

Experience the Wars of the Roses: Cousins, Conflicts, and the Crown⁠.

Join Royal Oak this Thursday, May 21st at 7:00 pm EST⁠
Online via Zoom Webinar for our lecture. Not able attend? Lecture is available to rent also! ⁠

The 15th century in England saw a series of battles among British noble families and royal relatives that ripped apart the fabric of English politics. As Henry VI was weak leader, two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet seized the opportunity for a bold and bloody familial power grab and, in doing so, reshaped the English monarchy. These tumultuous decades saw a rotating cast of kings, families divided, cousin against cousin, and fortunes made and lost.⁠
⁠
Join Royal Oak as historian and educator Carol Ann Lloyd focuses on the key players in this tempestuous saga, including Henry VI, his wife Marguerite of Anjou, the father and son Duke of York team, the Kingmaker, Richard III, Margaret Beaufort and her relatives, and the first Tudor king. She also will explain how and why this time of civil war came to be known as the “Wars of the Roses.”⁠
⁠
Carol Ann Lloyd is a popular speaker who shares the stories of Shakespeare and English history. She is the former Manager of Visitor Education at Folger Shakespeare Library, where she gave workshops and tours about Shakespeare and Early Modern England. Carol Ann has presented programs at the Smithsonian, Folger Shakespeare Library, Agecroft Hall, and TEDx, among other venues. ⁠

https://www.royal-oak.org/events/2020-online-roses/

05/18/2020

Royal Oak has three online lectures coming up in the next two weeks! From the Wars of the Roses to Liberty’s of London to iconic British pubs, experience England online with Royal Oak!

Thursday, May 21st 7pm EST. The Wars of the Roses: Cousins, Conflicts and the Crown with Carol Ann Lloyd

Tuesday, May 26th 3pm EST. Liberty’s of London: The Chosen Resort of the Artistic Shopper with Ian Cox

Tuesday, June 2nd 3pm EST. The Heart of England: The History and Design of British Pubs with Ian Cox

READ MORE AND REGISTER TODAY
https://www.royal-oak.org/events/2020-online/

05/05/2020

Celebrate British Gardens with Royal Oak this Giving Tuesday

To celebrate this spring season, we are sharing with you an interview we did with Anne and Johnny Chambers to discuss their garden in the Cotswolds, Kiftsgate Court.

As the renowned garden writer Robin Lane Fox wrote of the garden, “there is nowhere else in Britain that has such a family tradition of planting and dedication."

We hope you will enjoy this video and share your own garden inspiration on Instagram! Remember to tag us and please consider a donation to Royal Oak during this critical when we need your help more than ever.

In the fall of 2019, Royal Oak sat down with Anne and Johnny Chambers to discuss their garden in the Cotswolds, Kiftsgate Court. As the garden writer Robin Lane Fox wrote about Kiftsgate “there is nowhere else in Britain that has such a family tradition of planting and dedication.

04/25/2020

Visiting Cornwall today. Love this peek of Cotehele through the rhododendrons. One can imagine Daphne du Maurier coming up the drive.

Cotehele House, a rustic house built of slatestone and granite, was redeveloped between 1485 and c.1565 after Sir Richard Edgcumbe was rewarded for his loyalty to Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth.

It quickly became a second home to the Edgcumbes who built their principal residence near Plymouth. Cotehele thus escaped major changes in subsequent years, retaining the Tudor Hall, Kitchen and Chapel. The solar block and other areas were modernized in the mid-17th century to create a series of dimly lit rooms.

The interior is defined by the imposing great hall with a timber-framed roof and heraldic panels in the windows. The Chapel has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with wooden ribs joined with a variety of bosses. Despite the strong air of Tudor authenticity, most of the interior furnishings were probably introduced in the 18th century by the Edgcumbes in an attempt to create romantic interiors which evoked the past.