A warm welcome from our Chair

Hello, my name is George Dunseath and on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Brentwood/Montbazon Town Twinning Association I should like to welcome you to the Association’s website.

We are a group of Brentwood residents, you might say Francophiles, who meet regularly for social activities, to raise funds and organise annual exchange visits with friends in our beautiful twin town of Montbazon, just south of Tours in the Loire valley in France.

Covid prevented us from meeting up with our French friends, but since then we have met in France in the summers of 2023 and 2025, and in July 2026 we are planning for 36 visitors from Montbazon.

We will take them to Audley End House and Gardens, on a walking tour of Cambridge, including a visit to a college and to the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey. There will be a celebration dinner of hog roast followed by a barn dance in the grounds of Brentwood School.

They will include young people who are very keen to visit us and to get to know British people.

Our Brentwood hosts offer a spare room (or a sofabed) and meals. If you’d like to become a host in future please get in touch with our Secretary at brentwoodfrench@gmail.com. You don’t need to speak French, as most of our visitors know some English.

Montbazon has many artistic, cultural and business clubs and associations.   One of our functions is to encourage friendship and to facilitate links between similar groups.  If you would like to find a partner for your club or association, try http://www.ville-montbazon.fr/fr/associations If you need help with this, please contact us.

We also have monthly French chat sessions at Brentwood Library.  The dates are here.

If you are new to the idea of twinning, I hope the information on this website will spark your interest and that you will consider joining our friendly group.   Membership is only £10 annually for adults – and free for children if a parent joins.

We also raise funds for our annual exchange visits. We have also established visits between the Brentwood Art Society and their counterparts in Montbazon and hope to develop links with tennis, dance, rugby, bridge and pétanque clubs.

We welcome your feedback on all aspects of our Twinning, but particularly on the website as we seek to produce something fit for the 2020s.