LUNCHTIME LECTURE

The Mirror in the Bike Shed: Arts and Crafts, Ladies and Bicycles

by Anthony Davis FSA

This lecture is about a listed bicycle shed used by the single professional ladies who lived in Waterlow Court, Hampstead Garden Suburb, built in 1909 to designs by the noted Arts and Crafts architect Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865 – 1945). The shed is fascinating both for its style and for its social context. It looks like a medieval threshing barn, influenced by the ideas of William Morris and Raymond Unwin and mirroring the aspirations of the working ladies who used it. Bicycles also held particular significance for women’s emancipation and the suffrage movement and the lecture looks at the shed in the context of bicycle literature, relates it to other nearby bicycle spaces and the Garden City movement generally and reveals the importance of bicycles in Edwardian England before mass ownership of motor cars.

The work on which this lecture is based was awarded the Mavis Batey Essay Prize by the Gardens Trust and will be published in Garden History in Winter 2021.

---

This event will be both in person at Burlington House and online. Please select the appropriate ticket below. 

Attendance at Burlington House:

• Open to anyone to join, Fellows and Non-Fellows.
• Registration is essential.
• Places in person will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
• The event will begin at 13.00 GMT. Please arrive in plenty of time.
• In light of the recent Government, announcement mask-wearing is now compulsory in Burlington House from 16.00 on 30 November.
• All attendees should scan the NHS QR code available at the entrance. For further details on the Government guidelines regarding COVID-19 and track and trace please visit their website here.

Attendance by Live Stream:

• Registration is essential.
• Open to anyone to join, Fellows and Non-Fellows.
• Once you have registered we will be in touch regarding how you can join via Zoom video-calling.
• The event will be live-streamed to YouTube here.
• Places through zoom will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
• The event will begin at 13.00 GMT.
• You will receive an email reminder with the link to join the day before the lecture.
• Attendees’ cameras and microphones will be off throughout.

Please help the Society continue to deliver our FREE online Lecture Programme by making a donation to cover the cost of upgraded IT and software. We would really appreciate your support. Thank you! 

If you have any questions, please contact us on [email protected]

Get tickets online