08.03.2018, 18:30 P.M.

Young Irish Georgian (YIGs) drinks reception in the former home of Mariga Guinness in Spitalfields, followed by a short talk on Mariga by noteworthy historian and local Dan Cruickshank.

Dan Cruickshank has known Spitalfields since the late 1960 and one of his first and most memorable encounters in the area was with Mariga in the early 1970s, just after she had moved into and repaired a remarkable 1720s house in Elder Street. She was inspirational and doing a splendid job keeping destructive-minded developers at bay by demonstrating that the area's often decaying early Georgian houses were worth saving and could make delightful homes.

Mariga and Cruickshank soon became friends, and remained so until her death. Partly inspired by Mariga's example, Cruickshank was involved in 1976 with the foundation of the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust, started to continue the battle to save historic Spitalfields. He became yet more intimate with Spitalfields when - in 1977 -Cruickshank bought his own decaying early Georgian house in Elder Street, where he still lives.

Cruickshank is the author of, amongst other works, London: The Art of Georgian Buildings (published 1975); The National Trust and Irish Georgian Society Guide to the Georgian Buildings of Britain and Ireland (published 1985); Life in the Georgian City(published 1990); The Country House Revealed (published 2011); The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital (published 2009); and Spitalfields: A History of the Nation in a Handful of Streets (published 2015).

Numbers for this event are limited so please book early.

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