Berkeley Castle is a Norman fortress which has been lived in by the same family for over 900 years. There is an imposing Great Hall and elegant state apartments, with magnificent furniture, Elizabethan tapestries, and rare paintings. The Castle is surrounded by 8 acres of landscaped gardens, created by the Berkeley family in the mid-17th […]

First planted in 1810 and reopened to the public in 2019 after a 2-year restoration, these Grade 1 listed gardens feature outstanding scenery and should be particularly colourful in May when the rhododendrons are in bloom. There is also a renowned rock garden, dolls house museum, rare colony of wallabies, huge carp in the 7 […]

Tyntesfield – the one built with guano money! A near-complete Victorian country house and estate. The richly decorated and furnished house is home to more than 60,000 of the Gibbs family’s possessions. There are splendid gardens, including a kitchen garden. Clevedon Court is a very different property. The house is 13th century, has been the […]

This 19th -century castle, nestled at the foot of the Malvern Hills in Herefordshire, was completed in1820 for John Cocks, 1st Earl Somers, and is still the home of his descendants, the Hervey-Bathurst family. Many of the rooms are open to the public, including the Great Hall, the dining room, the gothic drawing room, the […]

The home of 19 generations of the Spencer family since it was built 500 years ago, Althorp is a magnificent mansion with delightful gardens, a gift shop and a café. There are 19 splendid rooms to explore on 2 floors. There is top-quality china and furniture to be admired and paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, […]

Frogmore House, in the grounds of Home Park (½ mile south of Windsor Castle), was built between 1680 and 1684 and became a royal residence in 1792 when Queen Charlotte purchased it as a country retreat for herself and her unmarried daughters. She employed architect James Wyatt to enlarge and modernise the property. Since then […]

The beautiful Wye Valley is Border Country, fought over for centuries by the English and the Welsh. The Forest of Dean is full of myth, legend and tradition. We visit historic Monmouth in the heart of the Wye Valley, the birthplace of Henry V. Monmouth’s beautiful ancient fortified stone bridge was hopeless as a defence […]