Florence Mare: A Record of Yardley

Florence Mare: A Record of Yardley opens at Blakesley Hall on 3 July, with the visitor centre showing from 24 June. It's an exhibition of watercolours by Florence Mare (1875–1970), a Yardley artist whose work gives a rare look at a lost neighbourhood.

Mare's life was an unusual one for her time. Born in North Wales, she moved to Yardley in 1920 with her husband and two children, settling in a bungalow on Stoney Lane. She was among the first female students at the London School of Economics, and later worked as personal secretary to the Marquis of Salisbury — a role that left her described as formidable, intelligent and keen on feminism. She didn't even start painting until she was 55, using her daughter's school paints, and was soon encouraged by a tutor at the Birmingham School of Art.

Her work captured Yardley's countryside and village scenes during the 1930s, before development transformed the area around Blakesley Hall and Old Yardley Village. The paintings are a record of that landscape as it was then, and the exhibition brings them back to the very place they depict. Blakesley Hall itself is a Tudor timber-framed house built in 1590 by Richard Smalbroke, of one of Birmingham's leading merchant families.

The exhibition runs Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm, at the visitor centre at Blakesley Hall, Blakesley Rd, Yardley, Birmingham B25 8RN. Entry is free.