Tour a Victorian Home at Wightwick Manor

Wightwick Manor is a Victorian house and gardens owned by the National Trust.

This isn't to say that the Mander family have actually moved out.  A portion of the old bedrooms were converted into a self-contained flat, cunningly concealed in the center of the house. On the day that I visited, Sir Charles and Lady Karin Mander were in residence. We didn't see them.

Wightwick Manor is an unusual National Trust property.  For a start, it's not as Elizabethan as it looks. When it was donated to the heritage organization, in 1937, it was only fifty years old.

As part of his generous gift, Geoffrey Mander included 20,000 shares in his company. The proceeds from that would cover the upkeep of the house.

Theodore (pictured) and Flora Mander began work on the house in 1887. Around the same time, Theodore happened to catch a lecture given by the playwright and poet Oscar Wilde. He talked about 'The House Beautiful', which argued that there should be nothing in any home which is not either functional or beautiful.  For preference, it should be both.

Theodore Mander took him at his word. He and Flora immediately altered the building plans to ensure that every inch of their home fit the bill. They embraced the Aesthetic Movement with all the passion in their souls.

The result is truly impressive, with secret staircases and boudoirs; a great hall and gallery; ornate passageways and themed bedrooms.

And that's when Flora Mander started buying the artwork.

I love the pre-Raphaelites. I might know very little about art, but I know that I'm fascinated by anything drawn by that brotherhood (and sisterhood, in the case of Elizabeth Siddons et al).

So imagine my face when I'm confronted by a whole wall covered in handwritten letters and notes from Maddox Brown and Hunt; and personal photographs offering a glimpse into their world.  This after meandering around a house where their artwork is on display, seemingly in every nook and cranny.

The tour guide gave her introduction in a room with an original portrait of Jane Morris by Dante Gabriel Rossetti on the wall. It wasn't one that I'd seen before. I was transfixed.

I know I was being told about history.  But I could look that up later.  For now I was staring at the walls and there were such treasures to see! 

For example, here are just a couple of the pre-Raphaelite paintings found at Wightwick Manor.

During the late Victorian period, only the rich and fashionable could afford William Morris designs. Theodore and Flora Mander were exactly that.

The Mander family had begun as yeoman farmers, but they had made their fortune in the Industrial Revolution.  Their paint factories employed a significant number of the Wulfrunian population!

So when the couple wandered into the Morris & Co shop, in London's Oxford Street, they could pretty much buy whatever caught their eye.  So they did.  The entire of Wightwick Manor is decked from basement to attic in his designs.

It was this collection of wallpaper and tiles which contributed greatly to their son, Sir Geoffrey Mander, persuading the National Trust to take the house off his hands!

I have focused on the art and decor so far, but that isn't nearly all there is to see at Wightwick Manor.

This was a home in its entirety until 1937.  When the Mander family sold it to the National Trust, they moved only their personal effects into the apartment nestled at its heart. The rest, including all of the furniture and fittings, were left in situ.

I've said at the beginning of this article that Wightwick Manor is unusual as a National Trust property. One of the other main reasons for this is that you don't have to guess what it would have looked like when people lived there. It looks like they only just moved out.

Moreover, when the Trust decided to restore the day and night nurseries, they didn't have to guess where everything went. They simply called in two members of the family who had been raised in those rooms, and were still living, to point out what went where.

The room which really took my breath away was the Grand Parlour.  It's not medieval, but it was built to look like the Great Hall in a castle. You can stand on the gallery, or wander through the room itself, and you can see what it must have been like to live in a place like that.  Not only at Wightwick, but in the endless castle ruins themselves. 

Artists will adore the house, but historians shouldn't be too sniffy about its modernity. It certainly kept me fascinated and intrigued!

I would like to mention the gardens at Wightwick Manor, but I didn't really see much of them!

Obviously I walked through part of them to get to the house and it all looked gorgeous. To my left were sweeping lawns and woodland, with a distant glimpse of a huge lake.  To my right were manicured gardens and flowers all in bloom.  Ahead of me were signs to the rose garden and the delights beyond.

However it was also tipping it down with torrential rain. I decided to come back another time to check out the land around the house. For now, shelter was my priority!