National Trust.
Little Moreton Hall was built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, entirely of timber framing. It surrounds a central courtyard. While most of the hall is of two storeys, the south wing has three storeys, the top floor being filled with a magnificent long gallery, possibly added as an afterthought. At any rate, the weight of the gallery and its heavy stone roof has distorted the structure below, and the floor of the gallery now resembles a wave-tossed sea frozen in oak.
(Those of an engineering turn of mind may note that the Trust recently inserted hidden steelwork to hold up the 3rd floor, and that the Hall’s undulations owe less to a medieval lack of string and spirit levels than the tendency of vertical posts to rot at the bottom and slump downwards over the centuries.)
Apart from three pieces, all the original furniture has disappeared and the rooms are shown unfurnished. The interior is corridor-less, with one room leading into another.
The building is of exceptional interest, and the external timbers have been cut in a variety of patterns to glorious effect. The whole is a testament to the ingenuity and skill of Tudor workmen.
Besides the house, there is a chapel with wall painting dating from the 16th century. The built-in dog kennel in the courtyard may amuse visitors.
National Trust.
You have all heard of “Back to Back” housing, with its connotations of urban slums. But what exactly is it, and what were the layouts like? To find out, you really have to go see some of the real thing. Such housing once existed in vast numbers, but today hardly any remains.
The examples preserved by the National Trust face onto a street and courtyard in central Birmingham. Three pairs of back-to-backs on Inge Street adjoin a terrace of five blind-back houses on Hurst Street. These tenements make up the north and east sides of the inner court. The yard contains two wash-houses and the outside toilets. Four back-to-backs have been fitted out to show what life was like here at different dates.
Until I actually saw the back-to-backs I had only a hazy idea of what they were like. These were cramped 3-room dwellings just one room wide and one room deep, extending over three floors, plus attic, with no toilet or bathroom. Everything was poor, shabby or peeling, and the construction, with walls a single brick thick, was cheap and flimsy. Up to 8 or 10 people crammed into each dwelling. Construction of such buildings was banned from 1876, but some were still lived in nearly a century later.
Today the NT have knocked through some openings to convert four cramped dwellings into a ‘tour’ but you are still strongly advised to book your conducted tour well in advance. Inge Street is within walking distance of Birmingham New Street rail station. This isn’t a prime commercial area, and when I visited, it looked like free on-street parking might be available for those totally determined to drive.
After visiting here, you might be interested in the covered market (nearby) the municipal art gallery (walk or bus ride) or the Jewellery Quarter (bus ride).
National Trust.
The house surrounds a front lawn on three sides, and was originally a timber-framed Elizabethan house. It still retains its massive Elizabethan chimneystacks and many gables, but has been greatly altered and updated over the centuries, being largely reconstructed in brick. The last private owner of the house, Graham Baron Ash (his name, not his title) undid much of the Georgian and Victorian alterations and re-introduced all manner of period features, such as leaded casements, floors, beams and chimneypieces from other old buildings. He also built a long gallery and converted a barn into a great hall to complete his vision of how a Tudor house should be.
Today, the house contains period furnishings, including fine Jacobean panelling, mostly introduced by Graham Baron Ash. Some of the contents came from Baddesley Clinton nearby. The elaborate gardens are also a showpiece.
A visit here doesn’t disappoint, and there is plenty to see inside and out.
National Trust.
The medieval house is built around three sides of a courtyard, and surrounded by a moat. Grey walls with mullioned windows fall sheer to the water, and there are tall red-brick Elizabethan chimneys towering above the roofs. The small panelled rooms, filled with mostly seventeenth and eighteenth-century oak furniture, are intimate and homely. The Ferrers family was Catholic, which is why they never had the funds to radically alter and improve the house. Three priest hiding places can still be seen within the manor house.
Today, the moated setting is striking, and the visit begins by walking the bridge across the moat. The tour continues through various rooms around the courtyard garden, both downstairs and upstairs, and including a look at the priest holes, one of them low down in a former sewer. A notable room is in the gatehouse above the passage. There are some pleasant gardens, both in the courtyard and in the grounds surrounding the moat. My visit included an hour-long guided tour of the grounds around the moat, which while not obligatory does provide visitors, particularly those who didn’t buy the guidebook, with some extra information about house and grounds.
Note that Packwood House (NT) is close by, and it is possible to fit in visits to both in one day.
Private, HHA
At Althorp, a great Georgian palace is surrounded by a wide park and gardens, and supported by some impressive out-buildings. Inside are collections of paintings and treasures, and outside, pathways lead the visitor around a lake set among flowers and plantings of trees. The gardens date from the 1860’s. The wider estate has 14,000 acres of countryside under management in three counties. Althorp has been the home of the Spencer family for 500 years.
The house is clad in what looks, even when one gets up close and touches it, like pale brick, but is in fact a rare system of engineered tiling designed to look like brickwork. The Spencer family has assembled an impressive collection of portrait art including several pieces painted by the Flemish master Anthony van Dyck.
When I visited in 2010, part of the house was clad in self-supporting scaffolding for a major external restoration project, so one could see at once where one’s entrance money was going. I opted to see the upstairs rooms as well (then an optional extra). “Day including Upstairs” tickets permitted access to the upstairs rooms including the five state bedrooms, Great Room, Chapel and the magnificent long Picture Gallery as well as what was included within the Day ticket. As it turns out, much of the more interesting stuff is upstairs. It’s not clear why ‘upstairs’ should be an optional extra except that, as is often the case, there is no provision for disabled access.
Outside, I walked around the oval lake, which makes a pleasant walk. The pavilion at the far end commemorates the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The italianate Stables were clearly built to impress, as well as housing up to 100 horses. The former Stables block, built around a square yard, now contains various amenities.
Althorp has a short visiting season each year in July-August. A discount is offered for English Heritage members, so remember to ask for it.
Revisited Aug 2023. House tickets now all include upstairs. Visitor parking is in a field opposite the West Gate public entrance. Disabled parking is next to the stable block, with entry via the power-operated gates, while able-bodied visitors have a half-mile walk. The walled garden is a recent creation. Walled garden & rooftopsWalled gardenOval pondPeacockOval pond and islandWest wing and stables
The Museum aims to preserve the history of Sywell Aerodrome and Northamptonshire’s rich aviation heritage from the early days of aviation to the Second World War and beyond. It is housed in linked Nissen huts adjacent to the still-operational Sywell Aerodrome.
The Museum commemorates, with aircraft remains, a number of crashes which occurred in the Northants area during WWII. There are a variety of other exhibits including cockpit sections.
This is an interesting visit for the history or aviation enthusiast. Suggested visit time: around two hours.
Private
The Hall is a fine symmetrical building of the William & Mary period, set in an extensive grassy park. Set back to one side are the stables and other service buildings, arranged around courtyards, with vegetable gardens behind. The house has some grand rooms, notably the Ballroom, grandly resplendent in pink and gold, and having a fine coved ceiling with four trompe l’oeil shell corners. The Library contains five thousand books, as well as many interesting manuscripts, the oldest dating from 1150. Other rooms contain objects collected by the family over the centuries. Drawing rooms overlook the Park. Upstairs, grand bedrooms contain four poster beds and tapestries.
As one can see from the website picture, the driveway heads straight for the centre of the house, before veering aside towards a parking area in front of the stables. The present house entrance is here, up a flight of steps at the side of the house and into a narrow central passage. The house is open infrequently, and my 2011 visit seemed more like former times, when the genteel visitor would turn up at the gates and be shown around the house by a servant, than like a slick National Trust operation. Our tour was hastily adjusted so that we could see the Ballroom before the owner occupied it for a pre-booked private function. The ballroom, with its coved and painted ceiling, is quite impressive, and the other grand rooms are worth seeing. We were not shown many of the upstairs rooms. I would have liked to have been able to find out a bit more about some of the objects on display. In 2024, I had a tour of the downstairs and upstairs rooms, with many of the objects on display being described by the guide. The Ballroom’s painted ceiling has been cleaned since my last visit.
In the Stable block, there is a large tea-room upstairs, a souvenir shop, and an unusual replica of an 1898 flying machine. This is a full size replica of “The Hawk”, one of four flying machines designed and successfully flown by Lt Percy Pilcher RN, a friend of the 6th Lord Braye. Pilcher was killed flying “The Hawk” at Stanford in 1899. A walled garden lies behind the stable block.
The River Avon, dammed to make a lake, flows near one side of the house, and a long pond is on the other side. The Stanford church (turn left as you leave the estate) contains several impressive monuments to past residents of the Hall and is worth a visit.
In 2024, the house was open for two weeks around Easter, plus on a few other dates in conjunction with ‘special events’ in the Park, or Bank Holidays.
website: http://www.stanfordhall.co.uk
All pictures 2024. For interiors, see Stanford Hall website. ForgeStable blockLakeRear of houseWalled gardenChurchChurch organChurch monument
The Hall was originally a Tudor manor house, and was given its present Classical frontage in the 17th-18th century. It contains a number of fine rooms. The Hall, now owned by a preservation trust, contains a wealth of fine furniture, books and paintings collected by the Isham family. Most were bought during the third Baronet’s Grand Tour of Europe, in the 1670s. They include portraits by Van Dyck, Kneller, Lely and others. Adjacent to the house is the stable yard, a paved square surrounded by a warren of old buildings.
The gardens to one side of the house include a tall Alpine rockery, the earliest Alpine garden in England, and peopled with minature figures, the world’s first garden gnomes. Today the gardens include extensive herbaceous borders and shrubbery walks containing some rare and interesting plants. House and gardens are set in an extensive grassy park.
Along the village lane near the house are some interesting old buildings which were part of the same estate.
When I visited Lamport there was an antique fair being held in the stable block, and while I didn’t buy anything I did have an excuse to explore all the old buildings around the stable square. The house and gardens were also open to visitors. The house is quite handsome, and the interiors and collections are interesting. The first floor has undergone extensive restoration, having suffered the kind of rampant decay all too common in old buildings, and now contains further exhibits.
This castle, with its Mary Queen of Scots asociations, is probably the most romantic castle site in England,and a magnet for visitors. Too bad that it doesn’t exist any more; you can visit the castle mound, but all that visibly remains of the great castle is a tumbled chunk of masonry at the foot of the mound that might have come from its walls.
As a consolation prize, the village has many attractive buildings in honey coloured stone, and the great 15th Century Collegiate Church should be worth a visit. (I didn’t see it when I visited the “castle” as I knew nothing about it.)
National Trust.
The house, a restrained building of honey-coloured stone, remains largely as created in 1745 to 1750 by its owner William Holbech, probably with help from architect Sanderson Miller. The front door opens into an Italianate hall with rococo plasterwork ceiling. Other grand rooms with fine plasterwork follow.
Outside, the grounds have a lake, and Farnborough’s most distinguishing feature, a long curving grassy terrace that rises for ¾ mile giving panoramic views over the surrounding country. Hedges mask the steep drop below the terrace, and it is backed by a line of trees and shrubbery. Partway up is a little pedimented temple with Ionic columns, and further along is a two-storey domed pavilion. A curving stone staircase gives access to the upper room, which has rococo plasterwork and fine views out. At the end of the terrace is an obelisk.
