A Year In The National Trust

Tyntesfield

Back in January 2014, we joined the National Trust for the first time, during a visit to Lacock Abbey.  We blogged about that and a subsequent visit to Tredegar House in the summer, but haven't mentioned the other NT treasures we found on our doorstep and a little further afield. So now, as our membership is about to expire, it's time to record our thoughts.

Top marks go to Tyntesfield, coincidentally a Gothic Revival house like Casa Loma in Toronto, although more in the style of an English country manor house than a castle. It was created by one of England's richest commoners, William Gibbs, who built his fortune on fertiliser. We remembered reading about him when we visited the SS Great Britain. For part of its working life it had been used as a guano cargo ship for Gibbs' fertiliser company. 

The day we visited was lovely and sunny which illuminated the spiralling turrets and pinnacles giving the house the feel of a mysterious fairytale mansion. Below it, terraced and manicured lawns give way to spacious parkland filled with hundreds of trees collected by the family, and an extensive walled kitchen garden which is still used to supply their restaurant with fresh produce. The flower garden had some of the most varied and beautiful dahlias we have ever seen.

Inside the house it looked as if the owners had just popped out to admire the estate. Photographs and knick-knacks adorned shelves and side tables. Welly boots sat by the back door waiting for a warm foot. Even the family's former chapel at the side of the house retained its holy charm even though it has not been used for over half a century. Bedrooms were piled high with furniture, as if the maids had been on a mammoth spring cleaning session. In reality they are awaiting the refurbishment of other rooms and relocation to their final resting place.

Clevedon Court

Only a short drive from Tyntesfield is Clevedon Court. The attractive 14th-century manor is still lived in by the same family who bought it in 1709. Thankfully, it has retained many of the original medieval features, including the great hall and tiny upstairs chapel. 

Tyntesfield and Clevedon Court are south west of Bristol, not far from the airport. On the other side of the river, we visited another court, Westbury Court Garden. We'd passed by it a hundred times, on the main road to Gloucester, but never stopped. Originally laid out between 1696 and 1705, it has the only restored Dutch style water garden in the country. Although there isn't much to see, other than the water channels and a couple of garden buildings, it's a very pretty place.

Westbury College Gate House

Back over to Bristol, we went to find another two small National Trust properties in the north west of the city. The first, the 15th-century Westbury College Gatehouse, was unfortunately closed due to safety issues. However, the lovely Holy Trinity Church in Westbury-on-Trym, which dates back to the 13th-century, made the stop worthwhile. 

Nearby is Blaise Hamlet, where nine picturesque cottages are laid out around an open green. Designed by John Nash in 1811, the hamlet was one of the first examples of a planned community in the world and housed retired staff from Blaise Castle. The individually designed cottages are still inhabited, so visitors just walk around the tiny green. We imagined it would make a superb venue for a village fête.

Blaise Hamlet

On the opposite side of Bristol, on the outskirts of Bath, is another grand house, Prior Park. While you can't visit the house, it is now a college, you can stroll through the National Trust owned, beautiful grounds. The gardens were designed by Capability Brown, and are set on a hillside slipping down towards the city of Bath. Part way through the grounds is a rare Palladian Bridge. They make for a lovely walk on a sunny day. We had planned to do the 6 mile Bath Skyline walk, that passes by the property, but a delayed departure and problems with parking meant we didn't have enough time. We can always do that another day.

Basildon Park

In our final month of membership, we took the opportunity, when visiting Rob and Sarah in Marlow, to explore some of the National Properties in the area. West of Reading, not in Essex, is Basildon Park. Like Prior Park, a Palladian mansion built in the late 18th century for Sir Francis Sykes. The rapid demise of his fortune meant it was never fully completed and soon became poorly maintained. By the Second World War, when it was used as a POW camp, it had become semi-derelict. Fortunately it was rescued by Lord and Lady Iliffe in the 1950s and beautifully restored to its former glory, and maybe even better. Today the lovely house is used for film sets and was most notably (if you're a fan) the London home of the Crawley's in Downton Abbey. 

Greys Court

On the other side of Reading, near Henley-on-Thames, is Greys Court; a Tudor country house with a ruined castle in the grounds dating back to the Norman Conquest. One claim to fame is that the house was owned for a short period of time by Ian Flemming's mother!

After a brief guided tour - well it could have been briefer to be honest as some of the main rooms were closed - we headed towards High Wycombe and our final property, Hughenden, country home of the Victorian statesman, and most unlikely Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. We joined the last house tour of the day, which was on the subject of portraits. Not our favourite, but made interesting by the colourful stories the doddery guide told us about the private life of Disraeli and his chums, as we strolled through the beautifully furnished rooms filled with personal memorabilia. It was like the Disraelis still lived there. A lovely feature of many of the National Trust properties we visited in our year.

Hughendon