Would you like to come to our house? Our friends Helen and James asked us as we travelled north up the Staffs and Worcester, well not actually their house but their local NT property and only 5 minutes walk from the canal. And so after a mornings cruise together,
we moored up at Wightwick Bridge Visitor Mooring
and strolled across to the Manor.
Built in the late 1880’s, Wightwick Manor, was built for Theodore Mander and his family. They were inspired by the Arts and Craft style so lots of William Morris and Rossetti to see. It was also a period known as the Aesthetic movement -basically art for arts sake.
The family still have an apartment in the house and are known to enjoy Christmas there, although I’m not sure if they still use the dining room.
But I bet they are tempted to play the odd frame of snooker
As always you can’t visit a NT house without a visit to the bathroom, and in this case the sluice, containing a collection of slipper bedpans, not all that dissimilar to the sluices and bedpans in the hospital where I did my nurse training and that was in 1983.
Lots more laughter as we enjoyed the gardens
Definitely a property I’d visit again. Even if just to walk around the garden.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/birmingham-west-midlands/wightwick-manor-and-gardens
