National Trust homes
A guide to some of the best in region
THE National Trust has been conserving and protecting beautiful places and buildings for over 100 years.
It is a charity that has always been popular and the places it owns grow by the year.
Once in the ownership of the National Trust, the charity opens them up for the public to enjoy. To help with the upkeep, there is often a fee to pay to get in.
Close by, we have a number of National Trust properties while just a short drive away, there are many more that are also worth a visit.
See the National Trust’s website for more details, opening times and prices which can vary.
Here are some of the highlights.
Stoneywell near Markfield
An architectural gem in the heart of the countryside just a short drive from Hinckley opened to the public a cou- ple of years ago.
It is a rare surviving example of a bespoke Arts and Crafts home, with much of its original furniture and fittings. Stoneywell is a fairytale cottage nestled amid ancient crags and surrounded by a picture-book garden opening onto medieval woodland.
Offered to the National Trust by its previous owner, Stoneywell is the first domestic property in the county to be taken on by the heritage organisation.
It was designed in 1898 and built the following year by Leicester’s own Ernest Gimson, a leading light of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, for his elder brother Sydney and wife Jeanie.
The cottage remained in the family until being offered to the trust as a national treasure in 2012.
As the cottage itself is small, visitor numbers need to be carefully managed and all visits need to be pre- booked.
Stoneywell’s operations manager Caroline Taylor said: “We want visitors of all ages to be able to enjoy Stoneywell as the Gimson family did.
“The house has changed little in all that time and we have chosen to present it as it was in the 1950s, when Donald and Anne Gimson moved here full time to bring up their young family.
“Outdoors, the garden and woodland offer lots of areas to explore including the lawns, tennis court and an outcrop with a little folly which the Gimson children called the Fort.”
Antiques expert Lars Tharp, of BBC’s Antique Roadshow, who lived in Leicestershire as a lad and is a fan of the Arts and Crafts Movement, has been championing the reawakening of Stoneywell.
He said: “Stoneywell is the perfect adventure house with its light filled rooms, warren of twisting stairs and surprising angles.
“Outside you can almost fancy the echoes of children at play, of Christopher Robin’s friends or the rustle of characters from the world of Beatrix Potter.
“I think anybody coming here will be absolutely entranced.”
Stoneywell was acquired with help from the Monument Trust, J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust, and the Gimson family as well as many individual Trust supporters.
Staunton Harold Church In AD 1122 the Augustinian Priory of Breedon on the Hill had a dependent chapelry at Staunton. Breedon was a house of Nostell Priory, which surrendered all its properties to the Crown in 1539 in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Sir Robert Shirley, 4th Baronet had the present Church of England chapel of the Holy Trinity built in 1653. It is unusual for being built during the Commonwealth era and a notable example of Gothic survival architecture. Sir Robert did not manage to have the chapel completed: the Commonwealth authorities imprisoned him in the Tower of London and he died there in 1656.
After the Restoration of the Monarchy Richard Shepheard completed the chapel in 1665 for the young Sir Seymour Shirley, 5th Baronet (1647– 67).
The exterior of the chapel is substantially buttressed, battlemented and pinnacled. The nave has a clerestory with square-headed Perpendicular Gothic windows. It is flanked by north and south aisles with windows of an earlier 14th century style and arcades of three bays. Although the architecture is Gothic the furnishings are Jacobean, including extensive panelling, box pews, the pulpit and a west gallery with an organ that predates the chapel. In the chancel is a monument with the white marble semi-reclining figure of Robert Shirley, Viscount Tamworth, who died in 1714.
The west tower is of three stages divided by string courses and has a ring of eight bells. George I Oldfield of Nottingham cast the fourth, fifth and sixth bells in 1669 and Immanuel Halton of South Wingfield, Derbyshire cast the third in 1717. Thomas I Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the treble, second, seventh and tenor bells in 1831. What the National Trust says: Staunton Harold Church rises above a lake whose tranquil waters reflect the beauty of north-west Leicestershire’s gently rolling hills. It is a picture of rural peace and contentment. But you need not look far to find a very different story from England’s most turbulent times.
Built in 1653 on the instructions of Sir Robert Shirley Fourth Baronet, this is a rare building of its time, an era known as the Commonwealth Period, when Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of England.
Building this chapel was Sir Robert’s way of standing up for ‘all thinges sacred’ as he saw it: the High Anglican Church and the God-given right of the monarch to rule.
Staunton Harold Church, or the Chapel of the Holy Trinity as it is also known, is a fine example of Gothic style, which continued into the middle of the seventeenth century. The oak box pews and wood panelling are made from local oak by the Melbourne joiner William Smith. William also created the pulpit, the Jacobean-style panelling in the chancel and the original chancel screen which now stands beneath the organ loft.
Canons Ashby, Daventry What the National Trust says: This is a tranquil Tudor manor house set in rare terraced gardens, with the ‘antient’ Dryden family at its heart.
Built by the Drydens using the remains of a medieval priory, the house and gardens have survived largely unaltered since 1710 and are presented as they were during the
time of Sir Henry Dryden, a Victorian antiquary, passionate about the past.
The warm, welcoming house features grand rooms, stunning tapestries and Jacobean plasterwork, contrasting with the domestic detail of the servants’ quarters.
Stroll in the historic parkland and catch glimpses of early medieval landscapes, while a wander through the priory church reveals the story of the canons of Canons Ashby.
Calke Abbey, Ticknall near Swadlincote What the National Trust says: This is a country house estate preserved in 20th-century decline.
A place poised somewhere between gentle neglect and downright dereliction, telling the tale of an eccentric family who amassed a huge collection of hidden treasures.
The house has been little restored, portraying a period when great country houses struggled to survive. In the walled gardens explore the orangery, the flower and kitchen gardens or walk around the fragile habitats of Calke Park National Nature Reserve.
With peeling paintwork and overgrown courtyards, Calke Abbey tells the story of the dramatic decline of a country house estate. The house and stables are little restored, with many abandoned areas vividly portraying a period in the 20th century when numerous country houses did not survive to tell their story.
Discover the tales of an eccentric family who amassed a vast collection of hidden treasures. Visit the beautiful, yet faded walled gardens and explore the orangery, auricula theatre and the kitchen gardens. Escape into the ancient and fragile habitats of Calke Park and its National Nature Reserve. Don’t miss...
See the stunning state silk bed, erected for the first time in 1985 after lying undiscovered since the 18th century
Spot the ‘Old Man of Calke’, a 1,200 year old oak tree
Enter a world of little light and follow the twists and turns of the brew house tunnel
Visit the red and fallow deer in their restored deer enclosure
Stroll through the pleasure grounds to the flower garden with its unique auricula theatre and creep into the gardeners’ tunnel
Sudbury Hall and the National Trust Museum of Childhood
This is a country house in Sudbury, Derbyshire and one the country’s finest Restoration mansions with Grade I listed building status. What the National Trust says: The National Trust Museum of Childhood is housed in the 19th-century servants’ wing of Sudbury Hall.
The Vernon family came to Sudbury as a result of the 16th-century marriage of Sir John Vernon to Ellen Montgomery the Sudbury heiress. The house was built between 1660 and 1680 by George Vernon, grandfather of George Venables-Vernon the 1st Baron Vernon and is notable for its superb Great Staircase, fine Long Gallery, and portraits by John Michael Wright, and of Charles II’s mistresses. Inside there is a mixture of architectural styles with carvings by Grinling Gibbons and Edward Pearce, murals by Louis Laguerre and elaborate plasterwork by Samuel Mansfield, James Pettifer and Robert Bradbury. The carvings above the main entrance porch were sculpted by William Wilson. There are formal gardens with a tree-fringed lake.
It has been suggested that the design of the hall was based on Crewe Hall in Cheshire, which stands around 1.5 miles from Haslington Hall, where George Vernon was born.