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From King John’s bolthole castle to Beatrix Potter’s farm, the National Trust looks after more than 500 herit

BY SARAH TURNER

1. BASILDON PARK Berkshire

A house that has seen riches, ruin and stunning restoration behind its Palladian columns. Built in 1776-83 for Francis Sykes of the East India Company, in the First World War it was a convalescent home. During the Second World War, it was used for D-Day training and later housed Italian and German prisoners of war. In the 1950s, Lord and Lady Iliffe filled it with priceless art and period furniture as well as modern works by Graham Sutherland. Upstairs, a shell room created by Lady Iliffe contains thousands of shells collected from around the world and assembled into works of art. FUN FACT The house appears in the film Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley

2. WINCHESTER CITY MILL Hampshire

In the centre of Winchester, City Mill has been restored and is one of the oldest working watermills in the country.

With over 1,000 years of milling history, it has stood the test of time. The natural power of the famous River Itchen is harnessed to produce stoneground wholemeal flour. Experience its force as it roars beneath the mill. Guides are on hand to bring stories of the historic building to life.

FUN FACT Mentioned in the Domesday Book, City Mill was given to the people of Winchester by Queen Mary when she married Philip II of Spain

3. THE VYNE Hampshire

Built to impress Henry VIII – he and

Anne Boleyn stayed several times – this mansion was briefly occupied by Roundheads during the Civil War. In the 16th Century, The Vyne became a showcase for the Chute family’s extravagant tastes, including a jewelled casket from Italy and a Roman ring that is thought to have inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to write his novels, while more recent works include sketches by Stanley Spencer. There are expansive grounds to explore, too, including a lake and wildflower meadows.

FUN FACT The stained glass windows in the chapel show a remarkably slim and trim Henry VIII

4. NYMANS West Sussex

Rivalling Sissinghurst, this is a power garden in the High Weald of Sussex.

The Messels, a German-Jewish family, purchased this 600-acre estate in 1890 and brought a creative spirit to Edwardian gardening as well as introducing rare camellias and rhododendrons. Leonard Messel financed seed-collecting expeditions to the Himalayas and South America, and the results can be seen across the estate. While the house was largely destroyed by fire in 1947, some of it can still be visited.

FUN FACT Antony Armstrong-Jones, the Earl of Snowdon, was a grandson of Maud Messel

5. CLIVEDEN Buckinghamshire

On the banks of the Thames are 376 acres of gardens to explore with works of art including Roman sarcophagi and the Fountain of Love made from Carrera marble. Cliveden’s formal parterre garden was laid out with perfect symmetry in 1855 while its most famous owners, the Astors, added a water garden with a Japanese pagoda and reflecting pools (above) that are a blaze of colour in the autumn. Newer additions include the maze and a fitness trail in part of the woodlands.

FUN FACT Thomas Arne’s rousing patriotic song Rule, Britannia! had its premiere in Cliveden’s amphitheatre in 1740 as part of a masque commissioned by George II’s son, Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, who became the Royal tenant at Cliveden in 1738

6. LAMB HOUSE East Sussex

The National Trust’s most writerly house. In 1897, American author Henry James took a 21-year lease on this 18th Century house in the centre of Rye, filling it with paintings and writing three of his most famous books here, including The Awkward Age, which features Lamb House. After his death, it became the home of E.F. Benson, author of the Mapp And Lucia books, and Black Narcissus author Rumer Godden, who wrote several novels, including

The Diddakoi, while living here between 1967 and 1973.

FUN FACT John Lamb, the merchant who commissioned the house, hosted King George I during a storm in 1726, while Lamb’s wife was giving birth to a son. They named him George, and the king became his godfather

7. IGHTHAM MOTE Kent

Often described as the most perfect medieval manor house in the country, half-timbered Ightham Mote has courtyards and many historic rooms, with a wood-panelled great hall and a painted ceiling that dates from Tudor times, plus hand-painted Chinese wallpaper and china, armour and tapestries – and it is surrounded by a moat (right). Ightham’s surroundings are glorious too, including a walled orchard with apple trees that date back to the 13th Century, woodland and ornamental ponds. FUN FACT In its central courtyard Ightham Mote has the country’s only Grade I listed dog kennel

8A. PDETPWAROKR TH HOUSE N West Sussex

With 20 Turner canvases and nearly as many van Dycks plus paintings by

Reynolds and William Blake, this mansion has one of the National Trust’s most famous collections of art. Rebuilt in the 17th Century by the Egremont family, the galleries were designed to show off their vast wealth. Today, the paintings are hung in their original positions thanks to sketches Turner made when visiting. Petworth’s other treasures include a copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The

Pleasure Garden and 700-acre Deer Park, designed by Capability Brown, are gorgeous all year round.

FUN FACT Dating from the 16th

Century, the Molyneux globe in the

North Gallery is one of the earliest globes made in Britain

9. OSTERLEY PARK AND HOUSE London

This Georgian mansion near the Piccadilly line has some of the most perfect interiors by 18th Century architect Robert Adam in the UK. Updated for the banking Child

family, its rooms, especially the entrance hall and gallery, are full of neoclassical mouldings and plasterwork alongside furniture by Chippendale and Chinese porcelain. Behind the architectural serenity, there’s passion: Osterley’s stories include elopements and family feuds, while the servant areas show off the work below stairs. FUN FACT Osterley Park starred as Batman’s home, Wayne Manor, in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises

10. CHASTLETON Oxfordshire

The Juxon bible, used by Charles I in his last days, is just one of the treasures in this house. Just a few years later, during the Civil War, owner Arthur Jones, a Royalist, hid from Roundhead soldiers in a secret room above a porch. His enterprising wife Sarah drugged his pursuers with laudanum, allowing Arthur to escape overnight. The house still has most of the family’s original furniture and there is also a topiary and a kitchen garden. You can buy some of the produce in the summer and autumn.

FUN FACT Walter Jones Whitmore codified the rules of croquet at Chastleton in 1865. There are two croquet lawns and you can still see games being played here

11. SISSINGHURST CASTLE GARDEN Kent

Even before Vita SackvilleWest and Harold Nicolson bought Sissinghurst

Castle, with its imposing Elizabethan tower (left), in 1930, she started planting roses and other flowers there and didn’t stop for the next 40 years. Today, this is one of the most beautiful gardens in Britain. The White Garden lives up to its name: only green, white, grey and silver foliage and flowers are allowed.

FUN FACT With its red, orange and golden foliage, the Cottage Garden is Sissinghurst’s most glorious autumn space

12. CORFE CASTLE Dorset

One of the West Country’s most photographed ruins, Corfe Castle (right) was built for William the Conqueror’s son Henry I in the

12th Century. After the humiliation of the Magna Carta, King John holed up at the castle as well as using it as a prison to house nobles who had displeased him. Later on, Lady Mary Bankes won the respect of the Parliamentarians when she defended her family’s castle during the Civil War.

FUN FACT Enid Blyton used Corfe

Castle as the model for Kirrin Castle in her Famous Five series

13. GLENDURGAN GARDEN Cornwall

In this garden, spreading over three valleys near Falmouth in Cornwall, you’ll find rare plants from around the world, including giant rhubarb, handkerchief trees, tree ferns from New Zealand, palms, an olive grove and pecan trees. The maze (below, right) has been puzzling visitors since 1833. FUN FACT Glendurgan’s oldest tree is the giant tulip tree, thought to be 190 years old

14. COLETON FISHACRE Devon

A 1926 Arts and Crafts country house built for the D’Oyly Carte musical impresario family, it’s been filled with carefully sourced furniture and is still a beacon for the Jazz Age with its Art Deco interiors. FUN FACT By the front door there’s a tidal clock that the family used to know when the high tide would fill the pool at Pudcombe Cove. Set by hand, the clock is still kept updated by National Trust volunteers

15. HIDCOTE Gloucestershire

These gardens near Chipping Campden were designed as a series of 28 ‘rooms’ with hedges and topiary leading guests among courtyards and fountains while summer scents were followed by autumn crocuses and acers. They’re seen as Britain’s finest Arts and Crafts gardens.

FUN FACT You won’t find labels on the plants, but if you take a photograph and email it to the team, they’ll reply with identification

16. TYNTESFIELD Somerset

With several generations of collectors for owners, this is one of the National Trust’s most recent properties. It was bought in 2002 after a campaign to save its Victorian gothic architecture, featuring theatrical turrets, for the nation. At last count, there were around 72,000 objects to catalogue, including a jewel-encrusted chalice and billiard table with electric scoreboard. FUN FACT In keeping with Tyntesfield’s gothic exterior, the grounds house ten of the 18 species of UK bats, including the rare lesser and greater horseshoe bats

17. MONTACUTE HOUSE Somerset

Built around 1598, Montacute still inspires awe. The house near Yeovil, designed to show off the wealth and prestige of the Phelips family, was built in an E shape – a popular building style in the Elizabethan period. Festooned with elaborate panes of glass, the Long Gallery is the longest in Britain. More than 40 National Portrait Gallery paintings are on permanent loan.

FUN FACT In the BBC’s Wolf Hall, Anne Boleyn was arrested at Montacute, standing in for Greenwich Palace

A18N. D D WUNASTTEERRMCILALS TLE Somerset

Dunster’s woodland has had a castle since Norman times. While the 12th Century gateway is original, successive generations of the Luttrell family adapted their castle over the 17th and 18th Centuries, adding ornamental towers and creating bowling greens. These days it’s postcard perfect and is even served by its own steam train (left) which transports visitors from Bishops Lydeard.

FUN FACT The castle is famous for its unique painted leather hangings from the 17th Century AMAZING: A magnolia tree next to the maze at Glendurgan Garden, above. Left: The Dunster Castle steam train

19. COTEHELE Cornwall

On the banks of the River Tamar, this medieval house was a reward to the Edgecumbe family after the Battle of Bosworth. It’s filled with arms, armour and furniture. You’ll also want to spend time at Cotehele’s gardens with their medieval dovecote, pond storing live fish, viewing towers and Victorian summerhouse.

FUN FACT Whale jawbones have framed a doorway at Cotehele for over 100 years

20. STOURHEAD Wiltshire

An idealised landscape which feels very ideal indeed. Created in the 18th Century, this world-famous landscaped garden was designed to be a living work of art for its owners, the Hoare family. You’ll find towering trees, classical temples and a magical grotto surrounding a glistening lake. A garden for every season.

FUN FACT The house at Stourhead was the inspiration for Lady Penelope’s residence in the 1960s puppet series Thunderbirds

21. CHEDWORTH ROMAN VILLA Gloucestershire

The National Trust’s only Roman villa was discovered in 1863 by a gamekeeper looking for a ferret. Built by a very wealthy individual, it would have been the height of 4th Century luxury when it was first constructed, with its courtyards, natural spring water, underfloor heating and mosaics throughout.

FUN FACT The Romans brought a snail (Helix pomatia) with them and it still thrives in the Cotswolds today

22. SOUTER LIGHTHOUSE Tyne & Wear

A much-loved part of the South Tyneside landscape. When the light shone from Souter (above) for the first time in 1871, it was the first lighthouse in the world designed and built to be powered by electricity, using an alternating electric current. Painted in distinctive red and white hoops, it’s surrounded by 2.5 miles of limestone cliffs that are home to kittiwakes, fulmars, cormorants and guillemots. FUN FACT There are 54 spiral stairs and 22 ladder steps to the top of the lighthouse

23. WENTWORTH CASTLE GARDENS Yorkshire

South Yorkshire’s only Grade I listed landscape (right) takes in over 500 acres of parkland near Barnsley. Created by Sir Thomas Wentworth in the 18th Century, it’s full of fun, including a folly shaped like a medieval castle and a Union Jack garden planted in a crisscross pattern to mark the union of England and Scotland in 1707.

And there’s industrial heritage too: much of the land was used for mining, and Ivas Wood was replanted in the 20th Century after coal production stopped.

FUN FACT The golden ball on top of the sun monument was designed to reflect light into the windows of a rival cousin’s estate

24. EAST RIDDLESDEN HALL Yorkshire

When film-makers are making adaptations of Brontë novels, they often come to this 17th Century manor house. It has played Wuthering Heights in two adaptations, including a 2009 version with Tom Hardy and Sarah Lancashire.

FUN FACT Former owners the Murgatroyds were keen royalists but couldn’t display this openly in the Civil War. However, if you look high up outside the Bothy (now the café) you can see the heads of Charles I and Henrietta Maria carved into the stone

2O5L. W HAASLHLINGTON D Tyne & Wear

The first record of this hall can be found in 973AD, and the ancestors of George Washington, the first president of the United States, were the first inhabitants of this house. Medieval in origin, it was rebuilt and enlarged over the centuries, but by the 19th Century it had become a tenement housing up to nine families, all living without gas or electricity and only one cold-water tap outside. American benefactors helped restore it, and one of the flats has been recreated with period furniture. There’s also plenty of George Washington memorabilia on display.

FUN FACT Washington Old Hall was saved from demolition by a local teacher, Fred Hill, in 1936

26. CRAGSIDE Northumberland

A mansion that combines Victorian ingenuity with a touch of eccentricity. Built between 1865 and 1897, it was the home of the wealthy and forwardthinking Armstrongs, who powered their house with hydroelectricity and filled it full of gadgets, including a water-powered rotating spit, dumb waiter and luggage lift which was used by Edward VII when he stayed. There are also works of art by William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The gardens, with waterfalls, are beautiful in their own right.

FUN FACT In the grounds, you can walk the length of the Timber Flume. Over a quarter of a mile long, it channels the water from the moor to feed the lake

27. THE WORKHOUSE Nottinghamshire

This is one National Trust property you wouldn’t have wanted to live in. Built in 1824, it was designed as a model workhouse. Today, it’s returned to the way it would have looked in Dickens’s time, when families were split up and endured harsh regimes. Informative volunteers are on hand to tell you oral histories.

FUN FACT The building, which provided accommodation for the homeless until

1976, was still in use in the 1980s

28. FOUNTAINS ABBEY Yorkshire

The intricately carved 12th Century columns and cavernous size of Fountains Abbey demonstrate the wealth of the church during medieval times. In its day it was one of the largest Cistercian monasteries in England, and one of the wealthiest until its dissolution under Henry VIII in 1539. It’s now a Unesco World Heritage site alongside Studley Royal, a rare surviving example of a Georgian water garden that incorporates the ruins of Fountains Abbey and augments them with ponds, statues and follies with a deer park, ancient trees and plants.

FUN FACT The National Trust has holiday cottages to rent on the estate, including the five-bedroom Choristers’ House

29. QUARRY BANK Cheshire

Spinning cotton for 175 years, Quarry Bank only stopped production in 1959. A pivotal part of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, the mill was powered by a 32ft diameter wheel, the most powerful in Europe when it was installed. Now it’s restored to full working order, so you’ll be able to see the looms in action and learn from oral accounts what life was like for the employees.

FUN FACT Quarry Bank’s owner may have been one of England’s more enlightened mill owners, but many child employees still had to work a 72-hour week

30. LITTLE MORETON HALL Cheshire

You might want to take a spirit level with you when you visit this, one of the oldest houses in the care of the National Trust. Dating from 1504, this romantic timbered moated house looks wonky, with uneven floors and walls that stretch outwards from its foundations. Built for the Moreton family, this topsy-turvy hall has survived over 500 years with only minor changes. FUN FACT In 2014 volunteers revealed a series of ‘burn marks’ and ritualistic designs from the Tudor period designed to ward off evil

31. HILL TOP Cumbria

As well as being the author of the Peter Rabbit books, Beatrix Potter was a very successful farmer in the Lake District. She bought Hill Top in 1905 with the profits from her first book, and this 17th Century house located in Near Sawrey went on to inspire several others, particularly The Tale Of Jemima Puddle-Duck and The Tale Of Samuel Whiskers, while the doll’s house is full of items that feature in The Tale Of Two Bad Mice. FUN FACT When Beatrix Potter died, she left 4,000 acres of land and 14 farms in the Lake District to the National Trust – which was one of the largest legacies the charity has ever had

32. WENLOCK EDGE Shropshire

Written about by A.E. Housman in his poem collection A Shropshire Lad, and the subject of compositions by Ralph Vaughan Williams and paintings by L.S. Lowry, this limestone escarpment is one of the most striking parts of the English landscape. Covering 19 miles from Ironbridge to Craven Arms, it has several circular walks to enjoy, including the Jenny Wind walk, covering two miles and taking in an old quarry.

FUN FACT Look hard and you may see small boxes attached to trees on Wenlock Edge. They are dormouse nesting boxes

33. SHUGBOROUGH Staffordshire

The home of the Earls of Lichfield from 1624 until the mid 2000s. Notable members include George Anson, who helped found the Royal Navy, and the first earl, who gambled away £600,000 – around £15 million today. Their pride and joy includes a wellpreserved model farm. Designed in the early 19th Century to showcase modern methods of farming, Shugborough is now striving to preserve ancient breeds.

34. CALKE ABBEY Derbyshire

From knitting patterns for night socks to priceless Chinese embroidered bedhangings given by Queen Anne to an ancestor, posh hoarders have more space where they can keep things. In 1985, when the last member of the Harpur-Crewe family died, Calke Abbey was given to the National Trust. For over 300 years, the family had collected compulsively, from maps to fossils, butterflies, toy soldiers and statues of duelling frogs. Calke has been deliberately left to look as it did in the 1980s, with both grand rooms and those with peeling wallpaper and paint, surrounded by hundreds and thousands of objects.

FUN FACT After a worldwide search, US timber merchant Andrew Johnson was discovered to be an heir to Calke Abbey and given an apartment at Calke to stay in

FUN FACT Society photographer Patrick Lichfield grew up at Shugborough and his apartments have been set up as a studio

35. UPTON HOUSE Warwickshire

The artworks at this magnificent 17th Century mansion include paintings by Stubbs and Hogarth as well as tapestries, ceramics and furniture. Still as they were originally displayed, most of the paintings were collected in the 1930s by Walter and Dorothea Samuel, who used their wealth as heirs to the Shell Oil fortune to buy art and perform acts of philanthropy, including helping Jewish refugees during the Second World War.

FUN FACT The gardens were created by Kitty Lloyd-Jones, one of the first female professional gardeners in the UK

36. BROCKHAMPTON Herefordshire

The history of British farmland is a rich one, and the estate near Bromyard is still farmed traditionally. Brockhampton’s orchards are a particular joy, with more than 65 acres given over to fruit trees, including the medlar, which dates from Roman times, but also apples, damsons and cherries. The house at the estate’s centre (left), built in the 14th Century, still has a gatehouse and a moat plus a ruined chapel.

FUN FACT In 2019 a new set of orchards was planted at Brockhampton. The aim is to tell the history of the eating apple

37. LYME Cheshire

Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni turned an Elizabethan mansion into a blend of

Baroque and Palladian glamour in the

1720s. The largest house in Cheshire, it’s surrounded by lakes, gardens and a herd of red deer. Lyme also houses the National Trust’s most important book, the Lyme Missal, printed in 1487. Technology allows visitors to experience turning its pages with recordings of chants to accompany it.

FUN FACT Lyme played Pemberley in the 1995 BBC version of Pride And Prejudice, with a wet-shirted Colin Firth striding across its lawn

38. SPEKE HALL The Wirral

This half-timbered Tudor mansion has plenty of intriguing features to discover, such as priest holes, spy holes and a place to overhear conversations so that the Catholic owners could keep safe during the Reformation. Visitors included artists James McNeill Whistler and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The most famous portrait is the Childe of Hale, a 16th Century man said to have been over nine feet tall.

FUN FACT Speke’s maze contains

12 gates, five bridges and three weather vanes as well as four miniature mazes

39. WICKEN FEN NATURE RESERVE Cambridgeshire

A hauntingly beautiful landscape near Ely. Wicken Fen is one of the very last pieces of undrained fenland that once covered parts of East Anglia and was the first National Trust Nature Reserve. Ideal for exploring by boat (right), it is a protected nature reserve that now features over 9,000 species of plants, insects and animals, including shorteared owls and rare orchids. A boardwalk takes you into the most ancient part, Sedge Fen. FUN FACT You’ll find herds of free roaming konik ponies at Wicken Fen

40. WIMPOLE ESTATE Cambridgeshire

Built between 1640 and 1670, Wimpole

Hall is the largest stately home in Cambridgeshire and filled with treasures including the Yellow Drawing Room designed by John Soane. However, the farmland, covering 1,000 acres and organically farmed, is now very much part of the 21st Century and gives visitors a chance to see how the National Trust is helping skylarks thrive alongside rarebreed animals including White Park cattle. FUN FACT The last owner, Elsie Bambridge, was writer Rudyard Kipling’s daughter

41. BLICKLING ESTATE Norfolk

This estate is thought to be the birthplace of Anne Boleyn; her grandfather owned it at the time. However, the Jacobean mansion that exists today (featured on our cover) was built by Robert Lyminge, who designed Hatfield House, in the early 17th Century. It played an important role in the Second World War, when the RAF were billeted there.

The grounds are as beguiling as the house – they include a parterre garden (above right) and a pyramid-shaped mausoleum open at different times of the year.

FUN FACT Blickling’s library includes the only book published by the painter Rubens

42. OXBURGH HALL Norfolk

In the centuries that the Bedingfeld family lived at Oxburgh Hall, they saw wealth and prestige but also imprisonment in the Tower of London just for being Catholic. Located within the gatehouse is a priest hole that could have hidden Jesuits from the reign of Elizabeth I onwards. On display is the needlework made by Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned by her cousin, the Virgin Queen.

FUN FACT In 2020, when floorboards were taken up at Oxburgh, many interesting objects were discovered, including a 1568 prayer book and an empty box of 1940s Terry’s Gold Leaf chocolates

43. SUTTON HOO

Suffolk

The inspiration for the film The Dig. An archaeological dig started in 1938 on the land near the River Deben owned by Edith Pretty. Over time, a series of mounds was revealed to be the ship burial of a warrior king, probably King Raedwald, who died in 624AD. Pretty donated Sutton Hoo’s treasures, including a priceless iron helmet, jewellery and silver, to the British Museum. You can see replicas and walk around the site. The nearby Tranmer House tells the story of Pretty and the site’s first archaeologist, Basil Brown. Sutton Hoo is open weekdays until the end of October and then the buildings are open weekends only.

FUN FACT The first equipment used to excavate Sutton Hoo’s finds was Pretty’s coal shovel and her pastry brush was used to brush off the dirt from the finds

44. FLATFORD Suffolk

This collection of buildings on the River Stour is within one of the most loved landscapes in Britain, thanks to 19th Century artist John Constable. He grew up at Flatford Mill, the backdrop for his most famous paintings, such as The Hay Wain. The National Trust now protects the landscape and buildings, including Willy Lott’s Cottage, also painted by Constable. FUN FACT In 2017 the BBC’s Fake Or Fortune? authenticated a painting of

Willy Lott’s Cottage as being by Constable. It is now worth over £2 million

45. ORFORD NESS NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE

Suffolk

This ten-mile stretch of shingle was a secret military research station in both world wars and the Cold War. It’s also a hugely important area of tidal rivers and mud flats that’s home to rare coastal vegetation and is the site of a new Artangel series of sculptures and installations, Afterness, that runs until October 30. To help protect Orford Ness, visit by ferry from Orford Quay – which is the only way to access the island. Due to boat capacity, tickets have to be bought in advance.

FUN FACT The Black Beacon may look like a wooden marine navigation beacon but it was built in the 1920s as a covert homing device for military aircraft

46. PLAS NEWYDD Anglesey

The 15th Century Plas Newydd has a Neolithic burial chamber on the estate. Its colourful owners include Henry Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, who squandered a vast fortune by converting the chapel into a theatre. Plas Newydd’s most famous work of art is the mural by Rex Whistler (right) – in it he portrays himself as a gondolier.

FUN FACT Also on view is the Anglesey Leg, the world’s first articulated prosthetic limb, created for the 1st Marquess after he was injured at the Battle of Waterloo

47. TREDEGAR HOUSE Newport

Built during the reign of Charles II and owned by the Morgan family, this is one of Britain’s finest Restoration houses. The carvings of the Brown Room feature serpents, lions and griffins, while the

Art Deco rooms hark back to Evan Morgan, who spent the family fortune on extravagant parties. The interiors dazzle too, including the panelling of the Gilt Room. Tredegar House is surrounded by 90 acres of grounds with a new sensory trail designed to encourage touch and smell. FUN FACT Eleven episodes of Doctor Who were filmed on the estate. You may find a lingering Dalek in the stables

48. DINEFWR Llandeilo

Lots to enjoy here, from Roman remains to modern-day crafts and parkland designed by Capability Brown, plus the ruins of Dinefwr Castle and a breed of white cattle that have been present on the land for 1,000 years but are now thought to be almost as rare as the giant panda. Interiors fans will enjoy Newton House, built in 1660, with a gothic façade added in the 1850s.

FUN FACT Newton House is said to be one of Wales’s most haunted houses.

Look out for Walter the butler and the telltale aroma of cigar smoke

49. LLANERCHAERON Ceredigion

Architect John Nash, responsible for some of the most beautiful Regency terraces in London as well as Buckingham Palace, built this mansion outside Aberaeron. His house has survived intact, including the beautiful plasterwork friezes, but Llanerchaeron also shows how a Georgian estate needed more than just beauty – the estate’s dairy, bakehouse, smokehouse and salting room, as well as a brewhouse and the laundry room, are still in place alongside a walled garden. FUN FACT In the extensive garden you can still see early garden technology such as the firepits that heated south-facing walls and flowerbeds to improve fruit production

50. PLAS YN RHIW Pwllheli

In 1939, when three unmarried sisters – Eileen, Lorna and Honora Keating – bought a derelict 17th Century house on the Llyn peninsula, the garden was so overgrown they had to climb in and out of the house through a window. The house was derelict too. Their garden is now one of the

National Trust’s hidden gems. On the wooded hillside facing south-east across Porth Neigwl, you can see camellias, magnolias and other plants framing one of the finest views in Wales.

FUN FACT Clough Williams-Ellis, who created the Italianate village of Portmeirion, helped the Keating sisters with Plas yn Rhiw, remodelling the staircase. Even toward the end of their lives, the sisters still didn’t have electricity and used paraffin stoves and wind-up gramophones instead

For more information on the National Trust sites including times, ticket prices and travel, visit nationaltrust.org.uk

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