BEN VILJOEN
Date: October 3rd
Ben spoke on the history of English landscape gardening in the 18th Century. His talk gave an overview of the work of Bridgeman, Kent, Brown and Repton with particular emphasis on Rousham and Stowe, as well as Blenheim. Ben also told the story of the discovery of one of the lost Repton Red Books, showing that new discoveries can still be made even in an area as intensively researched as the history of landscape gardening.

View Profile

LAURENCE REES
November 7th 2008
Laurence is creative director of BBC TV Factual Programmes and has won many awards for his four series on World War II, including The Nazis: A Warning from History. Under his editorship, Timewatch, BBC TV’s historical documentary series, won three Emmys in three years. His new six-part series, called World War II – Behind Closed Doors, is due for transmission this autumn.

IVO DAWNAY
September 18th 2009
Ivo Dawnay, Director of Communications at the National Trust, who delighted the audience with a talk with the intriguing title: Revoluntionaries in Pearls. .

ROBERT HARDY
October 16th 2009
Robert is one of the country's leading actors, having appeared in many celebrated roles on stage, television and radio. He is also a world authority on the longbow and its use in medieval battles, in particular at Agincourt. .

Lone Droscher-Nielsen
November 9th 2009
Founder of a rehabilation centre for orangutans in Indonesian Borneo, which is the world's biggest primate rescue project, caring for over 700 animals. Orangutans are seeing their habitat destroyed after the rainforest is cleared to produce palm oil - an ingredient in many products we all use on a regular basis. Lone recently starred in Orangutan Diary on BBC Two and has been voted the World's Greatest Living Dane. .

Rupert Sheldrake
2010
Without doubt, our most cerebal speaker so far was Rupert Sheldrake, the science writer and broadcaster who has a doctorate in biological research from Cambridge. In the past, Rupert has been branded “the most controversial scientist on Earth” on the basis of many of his theories, including his radical idea of memory in nature. .

Michael Lowe
2010
Michael lives in Wootton and is one of the country's leading lute-makers, with his craftsmanship renowned in many parts of the world. He has made instruments for many of the most celebrated lutenists, such as Sweden's Jakob Lindberg, who regularly uses Michael's instruments whilst playing in some of the world's major concert halls. They are also played when accompanying Dame Emma Kirkby, the leading early music soprano and a close friend of Michael's.

Prue Leigh
2010
Living in a bed-sit in London in the Sixties, after arriving from South Africa, Prue Leith started out making lunches for directors' dining-rooms and ended up as one of the country's most successful businesswomen, running large catering companies and a teaching school, as well as serving on the boards of several major organisations.

Paul Oliver
2010
Wootton is lucky in having several people who are the best in their field, but it is fair to say that Paul Oliver is unique in being a world authority on both the Blues and vernacular architecture. Having spoken last year on music from the Deep South, Paul gave a magisterial talk on May 7th about different styles of dwelling around the world

Paul Oliver
2010
One of the most moving passages in Colin Dexter's captivating talk on June 4th was when he described how one exceptional teacher at his school in Stamford gave him the chance to borrow any book from his library. Colin chose a novel by Thomas Hardy and so he developed his love of words and stories, which was to culminate in his own contribution to the canon of English literature with the Inspector Morse novels.