House, Gardens & Cafe Open Tuesday - Sunday 10.30 - 17.00

Art Intervention- Adrian Berg

Adrian Berg presents an exhibition, the first of which is hoped to be a series of such ‘interventions’ at Gilbert White & The Oates Collections. This subtle and unostentatious painter, like the great naturalist, spent his entire adult life devoted to the single minded pursuit of opening our eyes to nature. White’s extreme attentiveness to his immediate surroundings and the close observation he practised when travelling are both paralleled by the work of this artist two centuries later. Like the scientific studies that White bequeathed to the world through his celebrated writings, Berg’s unapologetically beautiful paintings are the product of a highly systematic process, born of a reverence for nature and a consciousness of our place within it.

Berg’s work will be on display in the museum between the 18th May and the 12th July. The Exhibition is part to normal admission to the museum and gardens

    Gilbert Whites House

    Gilbert White was aged 7 or 8 when the White family moved from the Vicarage on Selborne’s Plestor, to this house, called ‘The Wakes’ (named after the Wake family who had lived here previously). At that time the property would have been no more than a ‘two up, two down’  but over the subsequent years lots of extensions and additions have been made, creating the long sizeable house you see today.

    The rooms have been restored following descriptions in White’s own correspondence and include a chair he used at Oriel College, Oxford (loaned from the College), items of contemporary furniture, family portraits and bed hangings embroidered for him by his aunts.

    On display is the original manuscript of his book, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, which was purchased with generous help from English Heritage and others.

    Learn more