Every few years the debate about admission charges to national museums and galleries in the United Kingdom starts up again, although it is rare that anyone contributes a new argument. It has surfaced once more thanks to the response to the entry fees for the National Gallery’s exhibition Monet and Architecture, which opened last month. For the first time, the gallery is charging more than £20 for entry – visitors during the week will pay £20 but this rises to £22 at weekends.

MIES VAN DER ROHE observed in 1957 that ‘A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous’. Three hundred years ago, on 5th June 1718, Thomas Chippendale was baptised in All Saints, Otley, twelve miles north-west of Leeds. Thanks to the Chippendale Society, founded in 1965 ‘to promote the appreciation and understanding of the work of Thomas Chippendale Senior and Junior’, the centrepiece of the tercentenary celebrations is an exhibition, Thomas Chippendale: A Celebration of British Craftsmanship and Design 1718–1779, at Leeds City Museum ( to 9th June).