Wentworth Woodhouse: South Yorkshire's treasure house of stories

All English country houses are treasure troves of fabulous stories, but few are as rich as Wentworth Woodhouse.

This jewel of South Yorkshire boasts superlatives in abundance: the longest façade of any private home in Europe, more than 300 rooms, one of the most expensive homes ever built, and the birthplace of the first prime minister from Yorkshire. Its walls once housed George Stubbs’ famous equine portrait of  Whistlejacket (now in the National Gallery, but a copy hangs here). It provides a cautionary tale on the dangers of chasing fashion in architecture. It was both the headquarters of the Intelligence Corps in World War II and the victim of an ugly campaign of class warfare in the 1940s. It seemed destined to collapse under the weight of its own history before an extraordinary community initiative brought it back to life.

Unusually for me, it was Wentworth’s 20th-century story that proved most compelling. The post-war Labour government was determined to build a new egalitarian society, and the aristocracy—with all the history and culture they embodied—were enemies to be swept away. Punitive death duties meant that around 1,000 country houses were lost to the wrecking ball in the decades after the war. Wentworth faced even more challenges, thanks to a seam of coal running through the estate.

Enter our villain: Manny Shinwell. A firebrand minister who dismissed the middle class as “not worth a tinker’s cuss” and actively sought to bring down the upper classes. He used his position as Minister of Fuel and Power to take aim at the Fitzwilliam family and their vast estate. After nationalising the coal industry, he ordered mining of a seam that ran through Wentworth Woodhouse's grounds. Historic gardens and ancient woodland were ripped out as the grounds became the largest open-cast coal mine in the country. Works extended to just 100 yards from the house, and massive slag heaps were piled … one presumes intentionally … in front of the family bedrooms. Debate continues about how much damage the blasting did to the structure, but the insult to the landscape was undeniable.

Ironically, local miners opposed the scheme. The Fitzwilliams had been fair employers, and few wanted their neighbourhood’s jewel destroyed. Their warnings proved accurate: the coal was poor quality, the mining futile, and Shinwell’s policies did nothing to avoid the energy crisis of the brutal winter of 1947. Shinwell was demoted but managed to stay in politics. In the biggest irony of all, this enemy of the upper classes had no issue accepting an honorary peerage as Baron Shinwell of Easington and sat in the House of Lords for around 15 years. Hypocrisy as choking as coal dust.

After the mine

By the late 1940s, Wentworth was a decaying white elephant with an exhausted mine for a front lawn. Too costly for the family to maintain, too vast for the National Trust to adopt, successive owners failed to restore it. Only in 2016 did the newly formed Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust finally turn the tide.

Their achievement is remarkable. The lawn is back, the scars of mining erased. Restoration continues room by room, often with holes discreetly netted or braced, but the spirit of the place is alive. The house now belongs as much to its community as to the nation. Dogs are welcome in the entrance hall and café, children have spaces to play, and locals use its grand rooms for everything from meetings to weddings. The combination of grandeur and community adoption is unlike anything I’ve seen in another stately home.

If you’re here to see the house, your £15.50 admission (free to Historic Houses Association members, discounts to National Trust and National Art Pass members) gets you into the enfilade of state rooms that fill the centre pavilion, the ceremonial stairs leading up to them and a couple of less grand rooms just below them. It’s a tiny fraction of the overall house but, again, in square footage equals what you would see in many of the grandest stately homes. 

The blockbuster here is that staircase, rising to a landing, dividing, and curving back together under the gaze of Roman statues, and the ludicrously large great hall it brings you into. 

It’s an enormous square of white marble and sand-coloured columns, with more noble Romans standing in alcoves between them. The room is double-height with a balcony around its mid-point. There’s a spectacular inlaid-marble floor swirling out from its centre, and an ornate plaster ceiling to echo the shapes in the floor; though that’s still under renovation. Windows on both levels in front and across the top level at the back flood the room with light. 

It is a magnificent space, on par with the great entrance hall at Holkham for creating a space that feels built for Roman emperors rather than English lords. 

A service passage the size of many other houses’ great halls takes you to the end of the enfilade of rooms; two on each side of the main hall. You start in the Whistlejacket Room, where the copy of the famous painting seems more impressive here than in his usually home at the National Gallery, because he is alone and in the space he was made for. The Trust has brought in modern artist Hugo Wilson to paint a matching canvas directly across from the familiar one. It’s in exactly the same style as Stubbs, so close you’d assume they came from the artist, but this time Whistlejacket is showing us his backside, bucking. In the artist’s description, he’s turning his back on his national significance. I prefer to think that he’s just driven his hooves into Manny Shinwell. 

This room, and the rest of the enfilade, are mostly towering white walls with accents of gilt plasterwork cascading down them, around fireplaces and massive family portraits. One is a deep blue showing off neoclassical plaster reliefs. The hard work of restoration is obvious here: the walls shine and the gilt glistens. At the other end of the enfilade Whistlejacket makes his return, but this time as a neon sculpture. I loved the playful extension of the house’s masterpiece into new interpretations. 

There are miles of gardens here to explore, dotted with significant garden follies. I, however, had aggravated my arthritic knees so badly at the Women’s Rugby World Cup launch two days before that I wasn’t up for the hike. I did, however, enjoy the exterior of the house enormously. And given the size of the place, there’s plenty of walking to be done in the admiration. 

The two-faced house

The west front of the house looks nothing like the east. They are, in fact, two entirely different houses; built back-to-back. Around 1724 Thomas Watson-Wentworth started building the first one in the trendy English Baroque style. Red brick, white stone facings, abundant decorative gewgaws, lots of curves. But that style went out of fashion quickly, especially with the Whig party … of which Thomas was a member. They stood firmly against the Jacobites, and Baroque had quickly become a style associated with that Catholic challenge to the Hanoverians. 

So Thomas shifted style. But he was too frugal to tear down a brand new house. Instead, he started an entirely new house to the east in the more sober Palladian taste. This became the new front; the smaller baroque house became the back, screened by trees and gardens and kept for family. The new Palladian front was so big its construction fell into the next generation, being completed by Thomas’ son, Charles. The end result was so enormous it became … and still is … the longest facade of any private home in Europe.

From that superlative I was expecting it to be ungainly, or even a bit ugly. But here’s where Palladianism proves its brilliance. The balance of the elements, and the rhythm of the various columns, windows and pediments is so pleasing that it just melds into a brilliant whole. It’s easy to forget just how big it is until you look carefully. Or try to get the whole thing in one photo without engaging panorama mode. (top photo)

Wentworth Woodhouse is a place where beauty, history, politics, and resilience collide. Once scarred almost beyond redemption, it now stands as proof that even the grandest white elephants can be reborn when communities rally to their cause. Come for the staircase, Whistlejacket, and the sweep of Palladian columns—but stay for the community triumph that lingers in every restored gilded wall. Wentworth is no longer just a symbol of aristocratic ambition; it’s a testament to survival, reinvention, and the power of people determined not to let their heritage slip away.

Treasure house or treasure garage, Beaulieu is a great day out

In 1985 the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC hosted what's since become known as one of the most influential exhibitions of modern history. "The Treasure Houses of Britain: 500 years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting" fanned the flames of American anglophilia, established "country house studies" as a discipline in British universities and super-charged the transition of the British stately home from aristocratic playground to heritage enterprise. At the show's heart was the argument that British country houses, though often heavily foreign in their architectural influences, furnishings, art, and even the craftsmen who built them, came together to create something entirely unique to Britain.

At the time, I was a senior at Northwestern University, majoring in journalism but minoring in history and studying the British past with renown Tudor specialist Lacey Baldwin Smith. Journalism would give me a career, but Smith's classes were my passion. He'd been to the exhibition, of course, and sang its praises. I was dying to go. But I was a poor student, about to graduate into a tough job market with $55k in student loans hanging over my head. (More than $131,000 at today's value.) No matter how badly I wanted to get to Washington that year, I just couldn't make it happen.

My interest in the show and its exhibitions didn't fade, however, so in the years to come when I finally got to the UK ... first as tourist, then on work assignments, and finally as immigrant and naturalised citizen ... I followed the trail of what I'd missed back to the sources. In England, a group of 10 privately-owned houses formed a marketing consortium off the back of the show called "The Treasure Houses of England" and I visited them all. Some multiple times. 

All but one. Beaulieu remained a mystery.

Given that I have shared a county with the place for a decade and have driven by the entrance multiple times, this may seem unbelievable. But for me, Beaulieu had one significant problem: it was best known … and priced … for its motor museum. The Victorian Gothic house had little to recommend it by way of architecture or interiors. So I never went out of my way. All that changed with the need to entertain and impress a 12-year-old godson.

He was impressed. And, I admit, even I enjoyed the cars. I have pragmatic view of motoring. One car is much like the other, they exist to get you from point A to point B, and as long as it’s comfortable enough for a road trip and big enough to pick up visitors with luggage from the airport, I’m not bothered about make or model. I am puzzled by the whole obsession with“driving experience”, think people spending vast amounts on performance cars are idiots, and have been delighted with the idea that electric cars will silence all that silly engine noise. But I do love design, appreciate anything handcrafted, and I am intrigued by how things are marketed. And there is enough of all of that at the National Motor Museum to keep even this autophobe intrigued.

Early motor cars have more in common with horse-drawn carriages than the things we drive today, and Beaulieu has a hefty collection from the late 19th and early 20th century. Most are rich with gleaming bronze, polished wood, and hand stitched leather. One quirky example had a round driver’s windscreen like a giant monocle, and a horn-shaped basket on the side for umbrellas and walking sticks. 

Best of all from that era, the film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sits in the centre of the museum on its own plinth. There are also race cars, motorcycles, James Bond cars and super-fast prototypes. Those who want to dive deep can pop into smaller galleries on everything from tyres to how engines work to green motoring. There’s an early 20th century street with old shop fronts and commercial vehicles, campervans, an amphibious car, and even a whole section on car-inspired children’s toys. Yes, it was good fun.

But as the boys started to linger in a car park filled with vehicles brought by enthusiasts (it was Aston Martin day) I started to get anxious. The day was spinning away and I had yet to lay eyes on any art or architecture. Is the house worth the effort? If that is all you come to look at, probably not. It is an attractive place with mediaeval roots, though most of what you see today is a Victorian reinterpretation and expansion of the abbey gatehouse that once stood here. There’s lots of wallpaper of the type Burgess put into the Houses of Parliament. Some beautiful rooms with vaulted ceilings and atmospheric Gothic windows. But you only see about five historically-furnished rooms along the public route, best among them a great Hall, a sitting room, and a dining room. Nothing particularly noteworthy on the art and furniture front.At least, not in the traditional sense.

The most interesting things in the house, to me, were the artworks of the current owner’s mother. Belinda Crossley is a well-known artist working in tapestry and embroidery. Rooms here show wall hangings as well as paintings, panels and clothing design. There were some spectacular things on display, my favourite being a wall hanging somewhere between Klimt and a Tolkien book illustration. 

One assumes her artistic flare has flown down to her son, the fourth Baron Montagu, who works as a graphic designer and had turned both house and grounds over to a massive display of modern sculpture all up for sale. From abstract to traditional, small pieces for a tabletop to massive items for the garden, there was something for everyone here. (Though most of it at hefty prices.) Had I been on my own, I would have cut the cars short and spent much more time on the sculpture trail.

There is more to see in the grounds than most people could race through in a day. The ruins of the original Abbey are worth exploring. They are both picturesque and historically noteworthy for being the only abbey in England founded by King John. There are some pretty long borders … exploding with a fantastically colourful range of dahlias at the moment … and  several garden “rooms” walled by hedges. These run the gamut from working vegetable plots to a romantic rose garden to a delightful topiary garden on the theme of Alice in Wonderland. There’s a monorail you can ride around the grounds to view everything from on high. 

A small display in one of the garden buildings tells the house’s story in training intelligence officers during World War II. If you haven’t had enough cars, there’s a “World of Top Gear” section (I avoided that, but the boys liked it.) and a separate exhibition on cars in the movies (that I might have checked out if it hadn’t been hidden behind the testosterone-drenched Top Gear franchise,) There’s a playground area full of climbing frames and zip wires targeted at younger guests. There are falconry exhibitions and a proper hunting mews; logical since from its entry into private hands at the Dissolution of the Monasteries to relatively recent times, Beaulieu was used more as a hunting lodge than a main home. Much of the charm of the place comes from the fact that nobody has ever done the kind of massive remodelling that would have wiped away the past for something new.

At £16 per adult (more if special events like the Aston Martin day are on), it’s good value for money for a family day out. But if all you’re interested in is the house, gardens and ruins, it would be a pricey visit. Beaulieu is a member of the Historic Houses Association but doesn’t allow members to use benefits on pre-booked tickets. Which are currently necessary given the pandemic and the crowds caused by all the “staycations”. If I can use my membership to drop in at some future date, I would like to spend more time exploring the ruins, and pay more attention to the falconer. 

Beaulieu’ s not a traditional “treasure house” of Britain, but it did give us a family day that we each treasured for different reasons.

Englefield House gardens mix English romance with Italian formality

When I last told you about the 5th Marquess of Winchester (in my article on Old Basing), he'd just seen his spectacular mansion destroyed by Cromwell and its bricks offered to the villagers to enhance their cottages. Poor John Paulet spent the rest of the Civil War, and the Interregnum, paying for his allegiance to the king in various forms of incarceration, with the threat of execution and the sale of his lands hanging over him. It's no wonder that, with the freedom and restored fortune brought by Charles II, the marquess decided not to return to Basingstoke’s bad memories.

He retreated, instead, to an estate 20 miles to the northwest called Englefield. Though the current house has been much expanded and remodelled since his time, it still stands. And though most of the exterior you see today is 19th century, its "Jacobethan" pinnacles, cupolas and lace-like stonework would have made Paulet feel right at home.

The house isn’t open to visitors, but the gardens welcome them on Mondays throughout the year. Admission is free to members of the Royal Horticultural Society, the National Gardens Scheme and the Historic Houses Association. It’s one of those places I’ve driven by scores of times over the years but never managed to prioritise. In this time of staycations, it finally got my full attention this bank holiday weekend.

These are Victorian gardens, reflecting the age’s twin obsessions with plant hunting and Italy. The formal parts of the garden, stretching to one side of the house, are comprised of three enormous terraces bounded by stone balustrades, arches, urns and other bits of architectural framing.

A team of Italian craftsmen took up residence to build them; one can only imagine how exotic they must have seemed in rural Berkshire in the 1860s. The result is something that would fit naturally beside a Baroque Roman palace, softened by the lush colours of traditional English planting schemes and gentle views over the adjacent valley. The polo team practicing below added to the slightly odd Anglo-Italian mash-up.

I assume these terraces blaze in mid-summer with beds of bright annuals. But I suspect my early May  visit saw the garden at its best. A hillside above the house is covered with a lightly-planted woodland carpeted in bluebells.

A broad, grassy path runs along the woodland to the top of the hill, where there's a thoughtfully-placed bench from which to contemplate house, garden and the wide valley stretching beyond. The other side of the path gives way to thickets of azaleas and rhododendron, most at the peak of their bloom.

The hill on which they're planted slopes gently, arriving in a grassy valley bordered by a stream that comes through a vaguely Japanese rockery. At this time of year it's awash with forget-me-nots.

From here, the grass leads to the top of the terraces, where everything goes from informal to rigid, sinuous to dead straight. But even here there's plenty of colour, with Japanese maples putting out their bright early leaves, bulbs blooming in pots and borders, and a profusion of flowering fruit and magnolia trees. From the edge of the terrace in front of the house there's a lovely view down towards the estate village and its parish church.

Though it was my first time at Englefield House, it all felt quite familiar. The answer came when I got home and a bit of research revealed it's a wildly popular filming location. (An hour out of London, just off the M4, tourists only on Mondays. Perfect!) The King's Speech, X-Men, and Black Mirror are just a few of its more recent film credits and it's a regular background for luxury brand photo shoots. But I recognised it from something much older: it was the setting of the the first-ever episode of the Jeeves and Wooster television series. It's also a high-end conference and wedding reception venue. Recent brides include Pippa Middleton.

Wander down towards that church and you'll find an old-school estate village. A small shop, a junior school, a row of charming cottages in matching architecture. It's all within the estate so there's no incursion from the outside world; it reminds me of the enclaves you find within Windsor Great Park. Unsurprisingly, this slice of old-word cosiness supports an estate that hasn't left the family since the John Paulet with whom we started our story. The title has gone, and the family name has changed multiple times following descent through female lines, but the tie remains. The current owner is Lord Richard Benyon, a conservative politician who's had long involvement with the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. His financial affairs ... more public than most stately home owners because of his political life ... make it clear he has no need of the tourist pounds that the Monday garden visitors bring in. I'm delighted the family is happy to share just for the joy of it. It's a garden that deserves an appreciative public.

Castle Howard’s interiors are poor value for money; stick to the grounds

The last stop on our Northern “staycation” was yet another stately home made famous by its use as a film set: Castle Howard.

I’ve always been a bit underwhelmed by the place, which I feel lives almost completely off its Brideshead Revisited associations without doing much to build upon them. On my last visit in 2009 they’d caught a fresh wave of attention on the back of the new film version the year before and had updated attractions at the house dramatically. Nothing has changed since. In fact, several of 2009’s highlights had disappeared (garden tours with access into the follies, special exhibitions and film sets). This may have been due to COVID-19, of course, but unlike the Percys who’ve dropped the price of admission to Alnwick to reflect the current limited offer, the Howards have kept their tickets at a lofty £22, at the top tier of cultural attraction pricing. To add insult to injury, with post-COVID reopening they’ve actually eliminated free entry to Historic Houses Association members that all the other member houses we visited continued to honour.

Regular readers of this blog will know I have no problem spending money on cultural experiences ... indeed, it’s the raison d’etre of my paycheque ... but I want value for money, and Castle Howard’s interiors do not occupy the exalted place their price tag to visit promises. The only thing of distinctive significance here is Vanbrugh’s soaring central hall and dome, and the two corridors off of it filled with the family’s collection of Roman sculpture. There’s no denying that this is one of England’s architectural masterpieces. But the garden-facing rooms off this core are basic spaces renovated by film companies during their work here; fire gutted the core and the house’s East wing in 1940. 

A handful of drawing rooms in the West wing survived the disaster, but they’re unexceptional. Damask-covered walls hung with a mix of family portraits and landscapes, mahogany furniture and stately chimney pieces. All very nice, but there are no memorable masterpieces here and you’ll see similar ... indeed better ... examples of English country house interiors at nearby Beningbrough, Newby or Harewood, all of which charge less and offer more. Vanbrugh’s vast, echoing library/hall exemplifies the problem here: fine architecture, but similar to his much better example at Blenheim Palace and with little to look at within. If ever a house was ripe for the addition of modern art or alternative collections, this is it. A distinctive chapel and some bedrooms could have added value to the ticket price, but they were closed due to social distancing requirements.

Unless you are a big Brideshead or Vanbrugh fan who hasn’t been here before, you’ll be far better served by the £12.95 grounds admission.

This is one of England’s greatest designed landscapes, carefully created to mimic the Arcadian scenes dotted with classical buildings that were so popular at the time of the house’s construction. Long, dead-straight entry drives coming from both North and South are both dignified with obelisks, triumphal arches and other Roman ephemera, creating the feel of the Appian Way heading for the imperial capital. 

At the center isn’t the forum but the house, unique beneath its enormous dome and encrusted with classical columns, pilasters and ornament. The Caesars would feel at home. A formal garden with parterres and an enormous fountain of Atlas with the world on his shoulders sets off the back of the house, while lawns sloping down to a man-made lake dignify the front.

It’s the broad, grassy lanes radiating from the house to architectural highlights in the landscape that really make the place a delight to explore, particularly for dog walkers. The stroll up to the Temple of the Four Winds, your way marked by a procession of Roman statues on plinths until you get to the noble building and are rewarded with views over magnificent landscape towards the Howard Mausoleum (yet another idealised Roman temple) is one of England’s greatest walks. 

There’s also a vast walled garden here. Once the practical, hard-working engine behind the house’s kitchens and floral arrangements, now it’s sub-divided into a chequerboard of different garden rooms, each with distinctive colour schemes, designs and ornaments. These gardens are as exceptional an example of the potential of a walled garden as the staterooms are underwhelming representatives of their type. And it’s worth noting that the grounds are open for a couple of hours after the house closes, meaning you can enjoy something near solitude at the end of the day.

And thus ended our 2020 staycation, as full of new sights, high culture, fine food and great wines as any  foreign holiday. 

Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, when I was still resident in the United States, I was obsessed by England. I spent as many vacations here as I could and talked my way into every British work assignment I could get, primarily to enable manic weekend sightseeing. Since moving to the UK permanently at the turn of the century, however, I’ve gone increasingly native, equating “holiday” with places where people speak foreign languages, produce olive oil and need sun protection. I can’t deny a wistful hunger to head to Heathrow and end up someplace where they make more wine that they drink. But our adventures in Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland have reminded me why more than 40 million foreign visitors a year descend on this little island to sample its delights, whatever the weather. Closed borders are simply no excuse for not feeling like you’ve had a holiday.  

Palatial Harewood shows the English country house at its best, in spite of dark origins

In these days of statue demolition and attempts to erase history, I find myself relieved that marauding anarchists tend to urbanites who don't actually know much about the past. Otherwise, I'd be quite concerned about England's grand country houses. Harewood, a palatial neo-classical gem that dominates the countryside between Leeds and Harrogate, would certainly be in the firing line. 

Many of England's great families made a fortune in West Indian sugar, a trade dependent on slavery, but the Lascelles were particularly good at it. Not only did they profit from their own estates, but throughout the American revolution they took advantage of war's disruption of trade, calling in loans and buying up the plantations of those who couldn't weather the storm. By 1799 the Lascelles were reckoned to be the 3rd wealthiest family in the country, and had been raised to the peerage. But they'd committed the social sin of earning their money, rather than inheriting it. And earning it in a trade that was increasingly seen as unsavoury.

Harewood House is a magnificent example of whitewashing your origins with grand art and architecture. The first Baron Lascelles went "by the book", drafting in only the best to create something at the pinnacle of establishment taste. John Carr of York for the classical Roman-style exterior, Robert Adam for opulent neo-classical interiors, Chippendale for furniture, Capability Brown for the landscape, European masters mixed with England's best portrait artists on the walls. If you want to see one place that defines the best that money could buy in the late 18th century, this is it. 

Succeeding Lascelles family members, thankfully, resisted any temptation for radical modernisation. They've enhanced the house ... art, furniture, a sympathetic addition ... but it all fits into the original masterpiece. An enormous, rather brutal early 20th century sculpture is a startling yet somehow cohesive introduction in the marble entrance hall. Adams' long gallery shows off an old-masters collection acquired 150 years after its construction. (The 6th Earl supervised his agents to collect across Europe while he was in the trenches of WWI. One assumes that, like his ancestors, he was maximising the opportunities of war.) The current generation has rolled out a show of modern art created with feathers in honour of the estate's exotic bird collection. Some are puzzling, some creepy, but the "rug" that uses feathers to mirror the swirling patterns of the ceiling above it is captivating. You'll learn what's what thanks to a digital guide you can bring up on your phone, prompted by a QR code in the lobby. Modernisation where it makes sense.

Given my love of all things Robert Adam, Harewood is most precious to me for its ceilings, all in excellent shape and returned to original colours in recent restorations. Many retain their matching, specially-woven carpets below and combine in what some find a shocking array of Easter egg pastels. Harewood won't let you forget that the Georgians loved colour. It also has one of my favourite libraries in the country, in which Adam designed bookshelves as gently curving apses so readers could literally be surrounded by knowledge. 

Though the interiors are open, social distancing rules made the upstairs impossible, so we missed out on a series of bedrooms that include some fabulous canopied beds, rare Chinese hand-painted wall paper and an art deco bathroom built for royalty. But given the treasures on display on the main floor, we didn't feel short-changed.

That all of this is in such good shape, and that there are new things being added to the family collection, probably has something to do with the house's frequent use in films. Its extensive 19th-century service wing is the set for all of the "below stairs" scenes in Victoria. It's grand enough to have stood in for Buckingham Palace in the films King Ralph and King Charles III, and featured as itself in the recent Downton Abbey film. The 6th Earl married the only daughter of King George V in 1922, Mary; the film showed a visit to the princess in her home. Less opulent, though probably just as lucrative, the soap opera Emmerdale films in a model village set in the grounds. 

The estate often hosts music concerts, pop-up drive in cinemas and other events, has developed an interesting zoo and exotic bird display and has one of the most sophisticated children's play areas I've ever seen, with a profusion of turrets, slides and swinging bridges. The 1st Earl might have been trying to disguise his talent in business, but you get the feeling his descendants are still quite good at it.

Marrying into the royal family was a coup, of course, and the family connection was enhanced when Tommy Lascelles, a grandson of the 4th earl and cousin to the 6th, became trusted private secretary to both George VI and Elizabeth II. Rather surprisingly, The Crown has not filmed here.

The royal connection certainly enhanced the grounds, however. Princess Mary was a keen gardener; you can even see her spades in a small museum inside the house dedicated to her life here. The famous terraces stepping down from the back of the house are her design, an unusual mix of rigidly formal parterres and dreamy, cottage-style borders. She and her husband embraced the fashion for rock gardens in the 1930s, installing an enormous version with car-sized boulders, cascading water and paths through deep ravines. Current family members restored and updated it in 2009 as a "Himalayan" garden, heavy on primulas, orchids, lilies and poppies in addition to the original wide variety of rhododendron. There's even an authentic Bhuddist stupa tucked in the hills.

The sprawling grounds also feature a walled garden ornamentally planted with fruit, veg and flowers and those birds and beasts, who live in what's actually called a bird garden. On a hot, humid August day you're more likely to appreciate the dense, exotic planting than the birds, many of whom were wisely hiding deep in cool, shady undergrowth. The flamingos, however, were in their element.

Harewood is a model for aristocratic estates that have managed to stay in private ownership: a diversified attraction with something for everyone, regularly updating to keep things fresh yet leaving its core appeal untouched. It's a delicious irony that a house initially created to disguise its owners talent in business has flourished because the family never lost its commercial savvy. One thing the 1st Earl would not have been hiding was his ownership of slaves, something that at the time was both legal and unexceptional. Fortunately, the Lascelles have had a talent for moving with the times. No contemporary will deny the ugly taint on the origin of the family money, but we can also celebrate that over the years Harewood has evolved into something that serves, delights and employs both its immediate community, and those who come to visit from around the world.

Ickworth, Wimpole show off East Anglia's country house glories

Had life taken just a few turns differently, I might have settled in East Anglia.

My first tentative steps into English life, rather than tourism, happened there. My American employer had a subsidiary in Cambridge, and I managed to plead my way into two week-long assignments there following British holidays in the early '90s. Had they, rather than the London HQ, had longer-term roles, I would have happily started my expat life there. At about the same time I was getting to know my first British office, the man who would become my husband had inherited a quarter share of a farm in Norfolk. Reality called him to London as well, and the family sold up, though a drive by the old place this past weekend did trigger fantasies of me, freelancing after a career of tech marketing in Cambridge, married to a blackcurrant farmer and producing my line of boutique prosciutto from heritage-breed pigs. It could have happened...

Instead, this area is mostly a vivid memory imprinted by the typical, high-intensity explorer mode of my youth. I packed more tourism into the four weekends and 10 weeknights around those Cambridge business trips than most people do in years. What I found was quite possibly England's most densely-packed region for country houses, cathedrals and charming villages. While residents of the Cotswolds, Dartmoor or the Lake District might sneer at the flat landscape, the fens have a moody charm and there are some lovely beaches.

And yet, aside from one girls' trip in 2010, I've hardly set foot in the region since moving to England permanently in '99. This is primarily because of how inaccessible it is, thanks to Britain's overstretched transport networks. Though it's only 120 miles from our house to Cambridge, that will take you about four and a half hours if you hit the typical jams on the M4, 25 and 11. (Three on the rare traffic-free run.) Trains are expensive, uncomfortable and demand the hassle of a cross-London transfer. A journey requires a good excuse. And now we have one. A dear friend is about to "marry in" to the county, so we headed to her new village of Great Hockham for a long weekend.

The sightseeing options from here are vast. Bury St. Edmunds ... home and site of the martyrdom of England's original patron saint ... has an atmospheric town centre, a romantic ruined abbey and a modern sculpture trail commemorating Edmund's story. Newmarket is the home of British horse racing. Cambridge, of course, has all the dreaming spires, culture, punting and architecture of Oxford, but is slightly less overrun by tourism. Cromer, the nearest beach town, is famous for its crabs. Duxford offers one of the world's best aerospace museums, which I wrote about here.

On this visit, and having barely used my National Trust membership this year, I opted for countryhouses: Ickworth on the way up, Wimpole Hall on the way back. Both are spectacular examples of late Georgian/Regency style and, I wager, would be far better known if they were easier to get to. Distance does. however, have its advantages. Neither were particularly crowded, even on a weekend at the heart of school summer holidays.

Ickworth is unique for its enormous central rotunda. Intended as an impressive space for entertaining and showing off collections, it was designed by an imported Italian architect and is clearly meant to channel monumental ancient architecture with its ascending orders of columns and Parthenon-style external friezes. The result is a bit ungainly. Out of proportion with the wings on either side of it, the rotunda looks more like a museum or civic building than a gracious country house. But its sheer quirkiness makes it worth a wander.

The entry hall is particularly magnificent, soaring up the full height of the building beneath the dome, the space broken by a series of landings and fly-overs. Not only decorative, the landings along the upper stories are all lined with bookshelves, making the space a rather magnificent multi-story library.  The thing I remembered most from a visit here 20 years ago, however, was the Pompeii room. It's still just as striking, though two more decades of European tourism have given me the perspective to find it just a bit less unique than I thought it was, and in far worse repair than I remembered. Still, it's one of the earliest examples of the fad for copying what archeologists were digging up beneath Vesuvius, and it's gorgeous. I had not remembered the extensive collection of family silver, which is one of the best held by the National Trust.  One of the most amusing things about Ickworth, however, is simply checking out how its decorators worked with the challenge of curved outer walls. In some spaces, like the dining room, it throws proportion off and seems decidedly odd. But it enhances the drawing room to make it a dramatic spectacle.

Most of Ickworth came together during the Regency, that brief but critical inflection point between the Georgians and the Victorians. I adore this style. You have all the scholarly classicism of the Georgians, but it's tempered with a sense of humour and fun. And while it anticipates the lavish use of fabrics and pattern, and random mix of historic styles so beloved of the Victorians, it does it with a much lighter, airier touch. Wimpole Hall is an even better example.

The most memorable interiors here are the work of Sir John Soane, who went on to be one of the go-to architects of the early Victorian age and is now remembered best for his Bank of England building (based on a grand Roman baths complex) and his house-turned-museum. There's a marvellous story of how the owner of Wimpole, while on his Grand Tour, noticed an Englishman obsessively measuring the ruins at Paestum. It was Soane. When it came time for home remodelling a few years later, that sort of attention to detail meant Soane got the call.

Though this is early work, his obsession with domes and arches ... and mixing them up in interesting ways to bring light into a room through innovative sources ... was already in full flow. He created one of my favourite libraries in England here, with a light-filled ante-room under a series of arches, classical motifs in plaster picked out with grey-and-white delicacy. The house is most famous for his T-shaped, yellow drawing room, the odd angles and tall dome of which demanded the destruction of seven rooms to squeeze it into the framework of the old house.

My favourite, however, is his Roman-inspired indoor swimming pool. Visitors came down a circular stair from the bedroom level to enter a small room with a fireplace, towel racks and arched alcoves. From there, two arches open on curved stairs that sweep down, meeting in the middle on a wooden deck surrounding a deep pool. Not big enough for swimming laps, but eight or 10 people could happily take a dip here at once without crowding. Don't forget to shower before entering the pool! It's a Soane-designed piece of furniture: step inside the four wooden columns and beneath the round water tank (mahogany decorated with classical motifs) and pull the chain; water will drain through a lead grill to a pan beneath your feet. I wonder what Victoria and Albert made of it on their visit here. Evidently Soane designed a number of these, but this is the only one left.

Wimpole is more than Soane, however. In the best English country house tradition it shows off layers of design from different eras. The exterior and formal staircase, encrusted with decorative plasterwork on broad cornices, is Carolingian. There's a rare Baroque painted chapel by Thornhill that looks more suited to Hampton Court Palace than a Cambridgeshire country seat. Victorian tiles in ancient Roman style welcome visitors with a big "Salve" laid into the floor.

We can thank Elsie Bambridge for our ability to see any of this. Rudyard Kipling's daughter, and only surviving child, lived here from 1938 to her death in 1976, using royalties from her father's books to restore what was then a crumbling pile. Think of this as the house The Jungle Book built. Bedrooms and several sitting rooms appear as she left them when the place went to the National Trust, capturing the lovely pastiche English country house style of the late 20th century.

Outside there are walks through classic parkland, a dramatic ruined castle (actually a folly built from scratch) to catch the eye, an impressive stable block with cafe and shop, a separate restaurant in the service wing, the parish church and an enormous Victorian walled garden fully restored to grow fruit, vegetables and flowers. The old home farm buildings have been transformed to a model farm and petting zoo for kids; I didn't get that far but the flow of happy children walking back from that direction suggests it's probably a bigger draw than Soanian architecture.

Wimpole and Ickworth are just the tip of the country house iceberg in East Anglia. My introductory blitz in the early '90s gives me fond memories of the Baroque glories of Houghton, the Tudor ghost that is Anne Boleyn's childhood home of Blickling and the fanciful Jacobean skyline of Felbrigg. Holkham, the only house in the county I've visited and written about since starting this blog, is perhaps my favourite house in the country and has the added benefit of one of England's best beaches.

Yes, it's a pain in to get here from Hampshire. But I think I'm very happy that I have friends with a guest room in the region. It's time to get to know it again.

Five reasons to go out of your way for Walmer Castle

I have completed the Duke of Wellington trifecta.

As a local, and regular visitor, to the great man's country home at Stratfield Saye, and a long-time fan of the collection at his London residence Apsley House, I had just one significant English property to visit to complete the story of Arthur Wellesley's remarkable life in England. Walmer Castle was the home he was awarded with the honorary title of lord warden of the Cinque Ports, and the place where he died. With one day available for sightseeing in Canterbury, and having already visited the cathedral, this had to be my destination.

Walmer certainly delivers the goods for any fan of Wellington, offering up the room in which he died just as it was on that day. When you tour Stratfield Saye, the guides show you the original watercolour of the place captured at the time of his death and, indeed, it hasn't changed. It's simple and practical, with his camp bed, desk and armchair. Walmer was said to be his personal favourite amongst his residences, and you can see how the intimate scale and homely decor matched his dislike of excess. Apsley is a public stage set for great acts of government. Stratfield Saye is made for entertaining and dynasty building. Walmer is an old man's comfortable bolthole. You can also linger in an interesting two-room museum with gems like the original Wellington boots and the death mask of a touchingly fragile 83-year-old.

But there's much more here to see.

The military-minded will thrill to one of the best preserved of Henry VIII's coastal defences, still clearly showing the genius of its plan. Fans of architecture and design will be delighted to see how a comfortable, lovely country house has been carved out of a curiously-shaped Tudor fortress. History buffs will find much more than Wellington; a range of famous people lived here and an audio tour exposes you to the momentous things that happened within the walls. Gardeners will be impressed with the outdoors, which even on a grim day in early March were a delight.

Defence
When it was built, Walmer was a sophisticated piece of military high tech. Artillery was changing rapidly, and as a consequence so was defensive architecture. Cannon balls destroy corners, but are more likely to bounce off curves. Thus the castle is designed in the shape of a quatrefoil (a four-petalled flower). There's an outer set of quatrefoil walls, then a moat, then an inner set, with a round keep at the very centre. While the floral form looks very pretty from the air, the reality was a place bristling with guns at many levels that could shoot in many directions, from walls that were custom-built to repel enemy fire. The castle never fired a shot in anger at the enemy it was built to intimidate, France. But its location on the coast, so close that the old enemy is visible on a clear day, sent a very powerful message. Though the moat is now a garden and the keep a house, there are still plenty of cannon in place and it's obvious to see how the defensive structure originally worked. There's an excellent audio-visual guide that comes with the price of admission that explains everything, and shows drawings of the place ready for action in Tudor times.

The House
Once military technology moved on enough to make its concentric rings of cannon old fashioned, Walmer became a house that went with the honourary title of lord warden of the Cinque Ports. A succession of important, and often wealthy, public figures held the post, from Pitt the Younger to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, often putting their own money and ideas into improving the place. It is a cosy, quirky house, with some lovely interiors and decorative objects that reflect past owners. It's fascinating to see how architects carved a home out of this unusual defensive shape, complete with picture windows set into cannon embrasures and lots of rooms with curved walls. The most striking feature is the long hallway you encounter after ascending the stairs from the ground floor. Running the length of the house, all the oddly-shaped rooms radiate off it and a glass door at its end leads onto a cannon-studded terrace overlooking the beach and the channel. At the mid point, there's a lovely little octagonal lobby with light flooding in from windows set in a lantern above. A big fireplace and some of striking portraits lie below.

The decor is classic English country house: mostly a mix of Georgian and Victorian art and furniture with tasteful renovations and additions made in a consistent style in the 20th century. In addition to Wellington's bedroom and three museum rooms, you see a couple of comfortable reception rooms on the ground floor, while off that upstairs hall you find Pitt's bedroom and office, a dining room and a pleasant sitting room. There must have been more bedrooms, and plenty of staff accommodation, but this is definitely not a grand place. That adds to its charm.

History
Knowing a good deal about Wellington before I got there, I spent more time exploring the rooms devoted to Pitt the Younger. The wunderkind who became prime minister at 24, he'd worked himself to death by 47. No wonder, given that he had to spend most of his career juggling the twin problems of the Napoleonic Wars and a spendthrift Prince Regent. He also had a boisterous political opposition and was the butt of many a joke in the raucous dawn of the political cartoonist. (There's a great selection of the best cartoons here.) His bedroom and office suite give great insight into the man, as does a museum room.

The audio guide brings other eras of history to life, from the original Tudor soldier occupants to the early 20th century dinner parties at which WWI battle strategies were conceived. The daughter of the lord warden of the time wrote with gushing enthusiasm about how Winston Churchill planned Gallipoli at the dining table with "all the romance of a crusade." It's a chilling story, and a great example of how a good tour can bring a place to life.

Outdoors
Though you hear a bit about the Queen Mother indoors (and see a lovely portrait of her), it's in the gardens where she made her biggest mark. At this time of year, the woodland walk was most striking, with clumps of hellebores, late-blooming snowdrops and early blooming daffodils and miniature irises all adding colour. The space specifically known as the Queen Mother's Garden has interest all year round, with topiary castle walls and a long reflecting pool ... though it's clear the flower beds add colour in the summer. The moat was filled with daffodils, and lawns sprouted with crocus. It's the long, oddly-shaped yew hedges that made the most dramatic impression on me, however, looking oddly malevolent on a stormy, grey day. I have no doubt that the deep borders in front of them form a corridor of herbaceous glory in high summer.

The castle sits on a remarkably undeveloped strip of coastline. It looks like you could walk for miles between shingle beach, farmland and secluded homes. No doubt it's jammed with noisy holiday makers in warmer months, but right now it's moody and secluded ... something you don't associate with being in the London commuter belt.

Walmer is an English Heritage property, £10.10 per adult if you're not a member. There's also a tea room in the base of the keep, and a better-than-average gift shop. It would be a steep price if you were only interested in one of these aspects of Walmer. But if you combine Wellington, the military architecture, the history, house and garden ... all enlivened by an excellent audio guide ... it's well worth the price.

Exploring Blenheim and Stratfield Saye: From the same start, radically different results

Blenheim Palace and Stratfield Saye are unique amongst all the stately homes of England, thanks to their peculiar origins. Both were gifts from a grateful government to generals-made-dukes who had won epoch-defining battles against the French. Both were intended to trumpet the glory of national supremacy in their art and architecture. Both are "paid" for with annual rent flags, given to the reigning monarch by the current dukes and hanging in places of honour at Windsor Castle. And both have become such potent monuments to their founding figures that they have a shrine-like quality.

Yet it's hard to imagine two houses more different from each other. Blenheim: vast and imposing, backdrop to scores of films and entertainment venue for more than 700,000 visitors a year. Stratfield Saye: homely and comfortable, only open a few weeks a year and little known beyond locals and people with a specialist interest.

Though familiar with ... and a past multiple visitor to ... both, I recently had the rare treat of touring them both within a week. The experience cries out for a compare and contrast exercise.

Blenheim is a baroque tour de force. Its no surprise that its architect, Vanbrugh, started out in stage set design. The massive scale, Versailles-like projecting wings and military encrustations on the rooftops all trumpet "an important person lives here!" That continues inside, where towering marble halls dwarf the individual. All the Louis XIV furniture makes the place look more like a museum than a house, while the painted walls of the dining room ... where the great and good stare down upon you from lofty balconies ... continue the theme of putting you in your place. I confess it's my least favourite of the major English country house interiors because it's so lacking in warmth and humanity.

You would need a towering ego to be comfortable living here; something clearly possessed by Sarah, the first Duchess. Records show that she was obviously the driving force behind the construction, pushing on for decades after her husband's death to make sure nobody forgot that he'd saved England, Western civilisation and the world.

The architecture and interiors at Stratfield Saye are equally marked by their founder, but the result is entirely different. This is a moderately-sized Regency house, as aristocratic seats go, with cozy interiors and scores of homey touches. It's easy to imagine moving right in. The original intent had been to build another palace on a Blenheim-like scale. (You can see drawings in the hall on the way to the dining room; they're actually rather hideous.) But Arthur Wellesley wasn't that fussed about making a big statement, and his retiring, estranged wife was never going to follow in Sarah Churchill's footsteps. The duke was instead far more concerned about comfort and convenience. He personally designed a central heating system, putting Stratfield Saye ahead of many other stately homes by more than a century. He designed en-suite toilets into his guest rooms, cleverly concealed in beautifully-crafted corner wardrobes. The customised lamps throughout ran brighter and cleaner than contemporary alternatives, fuelled by rapeseed oil grown on the estate. In his library, you can see the reading chair he designed to allow a variety of comfortable positions, with moveable arms to hold book, candle and drink. The practicality continues today: the family uses the first Duke's dispatch boxes as coffee tables. The pile of remote controls and current magazines on one leaves you in no doubt this is still very much a family home.

You find out all of these details because you're taken on a guided tour by family retainers. On a wet Easter Saturday, the three in my group were the only visitors at the time and thus enjoyed an entirely personalised wander and got to ask loads of questions. This kind of intimacy, I suspect, is because the Wellesleys don't need the tourist money the way the Spencer-Churchills do. The first duke of Wellington's practicality created a manageable, well-run estate that's now able to fund itself in a way Blenheim simply can't. Thus the conversion of the Oxfordshire palace into a tourist attraction of Disney-esque proportions. Someone has to pay to heat that mausoleum and maintain all that art.

That's not to say that Stratfield Saye doesn't house equally impressive treasures. The first duke might have been humble and practical, but he enjoyed a bit of triumphalism. The long gallery here has the best collection of French Boulle furniture in England outside of the Wallace Collection. China, fine art, furniture and sculpture all attract the eyes, though the best stuff is up at Apsley House (more on that here) and the most interesting stories come with the family portraits. At Blenheim, you'll see similar stuff on a much grander scale, but it's the famous tapestries that are unique.

It's obvious by now that as a house, and for its founding personality, I favour Stratfield Saye. But I'll give Blenheim a clear victory on the grounds. The Wellesleys' place sits in pretty but unexceptional Hampshire farmland, not much "improved" except for some trickery on the river Loddon to create the illusion of a lake, and some pleasant gardens. At Blenheim, the push for grandeur that made their house a cold mausoleum made their grounds one of the greatest landscapes in England. This is thanks to the genius of Capability Brown, the greatest gardener of the 18th century and perhaps of all time.

Brown swept away the formality of French and Dutch gardens to create visions of pastoral paradise. Hills undulate, water caresses, herds or sheep and deer add movement, carefully-chosen trees combine to clothe the landscape in different shapes and colours. Grand architectural statements punctuate the horizon at the end of long vistas. Ironically, it's all just as artificial as the parterres, espaliers and clipped box it replaced ... but it doesn't look it. Wandering through the park at Blenheim on a mild, sunny day is a soul-soothing preview of what heaven must surely look like.

Half an hour outside Oxford, Blenheim is open most of the year, and offers a full day out with a variety of attractions. There's a variety of admission prices; many people skip the house and pay the lesser fee to enjoy the grounds. It's also the venue for a regular stream of events. Stratfield Saye is tucked in between Basingstoke and Reading, open at Easter and for about a month every summer; check their web site for details. There's not much to do beyond the house tour, so you'll only need a couple of hours. The estate farm shop nearby, however, is well worth a visit and is open year round.

Get eye-to-eye with unique Renaissance treasures at The Vyne

It's easy, sitting in a comfortable house in England, to find the destruction of the treasures of Palmyra or the Bamiyan Buddhas by religious fundamentalists absolutely unbelievable. A careless and pointless desecration of history that's beyond our imagination. And yet ... it happened here not that long ago.

In the middle of the 1500s, and again 100 years later, religious conflict tore England apart. One notable victim was the country's religious art; particularly fragile stained glass windows. That's why a set of panels at a country house outside of Basingstoke is so remarkable. Until Easter, you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get nose-to-nose with them.

William Sandys created the Vyne to celebrate his success as Lord Chamberlain to a young Henry VIII. Though most of the house you see today is Georgian and Victorian, the chapel is a magnificent survival from the original. Up above the altar are three light-filled arches, each with six panels of vivid stories told in glass. The top panels are religious scenes, the bottom commemorate the notable royals who had made Sandys' career possible. These glowing, jewel-toned works of art demonstrate what was possible at the apogee of the Renaissance glass-maker's skill. They're just as good as the celebrated ones in Auch Cathedral (Gascony) I wrote about here. But these are the only ones of this quality you're going to see in England, in their original setting.

They have always been beautiful, but now they've been spectacularly reborn. Suffering from five centuries of weather, outdoor grime and indoor candle smoke, they were showing their age. Pitted, a bit grimy, wobbling dangerously in their leading. So the National Trust embarked on a comprehensive and risky restoration. They removed everything, cleaned and restored each panel, fit the jigsaw back together, then replaced them. But not before installing a second, high-tech, weather-proof set of clear glass panels between the original windows and the Hampshire weather. This modern double-glazing, combined with careful conservation indoors, should mean that these unique treasures will be be preserved for generations to come.

But you only have four more weeks to see them at eye level. The National Trust has left the workers' scaffolding in place, so you can clamber up and look straight at them. It's only from this perspective that you really grasp the nuance and sophistication. Lavish architectural detail. Tiny trees and buildings in the landscape behind the main figures. Animation and expression in the characters' faces. The the fluid spring of a running dog keeping pace with a small boy. This is the kind of detail you just don't grasp when you're standing 12 feet below. It's a testament to the makers' search for perfection that they incorporated so many fine points they knew most people would never notice.

Equally interesting to any Tudor history buff is who's in the windows.
Henry VIII is in the centre. Not the broad, grim wife-flipping
brute of popular imagination, but a handsome, beardless blond youth with an eager look and an equally young blonde wife. She's on his left, and you can tell from the pomegranate design on her sleeve that it's Catherine of Aragon. Not the tired, post-menopausal woman fighting to keep her marriage, but a beautiful and confident newlywed. It's fascinating, and tragic. The other woman is Margaret, Queen of Scotland and Henry's sister. (Check out the perfect contentment of her lapdog, cheekily curled up on the lavish purple velvet of her prie dieu.)  These are very rare contemporary portraits of people we think we know well. The faces here suggest that we don't.

Thanks to the fine work of the National Trust and specialist restorers Holy Well Glass, you'll be able to appreciate these treasures for the rest of your life. But if you want to appreciate their details to the degree described here, you have four weeks.  Get there. You won't regret it.