This year we accidentally renewed our National Trust membership. This was mostly due to my inability to read the renewal letter properly and stupidly assumed that if we didn't do anything it would just be cancelled if we didn't renew. How wrong I was! I don't mind though as it meant we could visit one my new favourite places, Snowshill Manor in Broadway. It's a beautiful countryside estate nestled in the Cotswalds and so not too far away from Worcester. I also wanted an excuse to go for a drive in my new car!
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| Cafe |
Snowshill Manor was owned from 1900 to 1951 by Charles Paget Wade who was an Architect and Artist. Throughout his time at Snowshill he amassed large collections of everything and anything that took his fancy. He particularly coveted items which were handcrafted and well designed. It was the perfect property for me to visit as, being a bit of a womble, I love to collect interesting items and so can relate well to Charles' ways.
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| Mr Charles Paget Wade |
His vast collections started to take over the Manor House on the estate so eventually Charles decided to move out to a smaller cottage in the garden. Although as you can see from the photo below the cottage was by no means lacking in clutter!
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| Charles's cottage |
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| The Manor House |
We had an interesting talk from one of the garden volunteers about Charles' garden design and flower preferences. The gardens were beautifully laid out in a terraced design and contained only flowers in pink, lilac and mauve colours as was his taste. It was nice to hear that the plants were the ones that he had originally planted when he lived there.
Being an Architect Charles liked to draw and sketch buildings and this was shown in it's most magical form by his lovingly created miniature village by the fish pond. Complete with pub and even some miniature concrete steps. He also loved children and felt a great amount of joy and satisfaction in watching them playing in the village.
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| Model Village |
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| Tom enjoying the gardens. |
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| Amazing chair! |
My favourite part of the house was the rooms full of sewing and shoe making implements.
I was completely in awe of his room full of spinning wheels! My sister would've been in absolute heaven and I'm sure she would never have been able to leave this room!
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| Weaving shuttles. |
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| Big loom! |
The music room was very impressive and filled with instruments I've never even seen before. It made me feel a bit better as I have a bit of a habit of buying instruments I can't play just because they look interesting or pretty! Charles Wade was a man after my own heart!
I took so many more pics but want to leave you with some surprises if and when you decide to visit Snowshill Manor. I would definitely recommend it as a good day out and the cafe is lovely so well worth a visit.
