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National Trust property, Stourhead, is about a hour’s drive from my home. I had visited it before, but only when the gardens were at their best. The house is currently closed for the winter – except for ‘Behind the Scenes’ volunteer-led tours, which must be pre-booked. So that was where I was yesterday morning, Thursday 8th February.

After a journey along roads awash with rain which had fallen during the night and which sodden fields had been unable to absorb, and lined with banks of snowdrops, there a was a 10-minute walk to the house from reception, and I was greeted by many more snowdrops.

About a dozen of us were greeted by two volunteers in the entrance hall. We saw many people at work in and on the house.

We were given a brief history of the house, which was built in by Sir Henry Hoare I, the son of Sir Richard Hoare, founder of Hoare’s Bank in 1672. It was passed down through the generations until it reached Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare. He gave it to the National Trust in 1947, his son having been killed in WWI. There are still a few people living in various apartments in the building, mainly to do with the Trust, but there is still one apartment for the use of the Hoare family. 

The central portion of the house was gutted by fire in 1902; the wings were spared. Restoration, by the last Hoare to live there, was quick, and and fairly faithful to the original Palladian design, paid for by insurance which was, apparently, a rare thing in those days.

We had to pass through the Inner Hall to get Behind the Scenes, where we were told that one thing not faithful to the original was a double staircase, much desired by Lady Alda, wife of Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare, in placed of a single one. Unfortunately there was not really the space for the double one, so it is rather cramped and steep.

Before leaving the Inner Hall, we could just see into one of the public rooms, closed for the winter.

Once in the private areas, light was quite low. The camera has lightened these images, but at the expense of precision, unfortunately.

The doors of these first three rooms remained closed, but we were shown into the furniture store. (The Quarantine store is where, for example, furniture treated for disease, etc, is kept for years to ensure total sterilisation.)

This, at the time the main bedroom, was where the 1902 fire had started, in the chimney from its fireplace. Staff had managed to save most of the furniture and artefacts from downstairs. Furniture now stored here is rotated regularly with that on display.

The Lady’s Maid’s room was quite large, being where she worked as well as slept. This was just one of the rooms which had been laid out, speculatively, specifically for the Behind the Scenes tour. Frustratingly, there was no time to read the information panels!

I did wonder what a Spare Maid was!

The Nursery, with its windows higher than child’s or even adult’s eye level, to prevent distraction from schoolwork, was being used by conservationists. I’d love to have known what they were working on, but that was not our purpose.

Next it was up to the poky top floor, and the lesser servants’ rooms.

A room had been laid out to show a typical maid’s quarters.

Next we went down a ‘new’ internal staircase, installed by the National Trust to meet fire regulations. It took us to the ground floor.

The present wood store was used to store coal.

It would seem that the kitchen is not on show to regular visitors. Even back in WWII, the officers billeted on the building preferred to use their own field kitchen!

Then it was down to the cellar. First we saw the barrel run. Wooden slats were inserted (see holes at the side) to help smooth the passage of the barrels, carefully handled by several men.

The cellar still serves its original purpose it would seem.

At the end of our tour we were back in the Inner Hall, where a table had been laid out showing conservators’ materials. I really must do one of the Trust’s conservation tours one of these days.

Although it was drizzling as I left the house, I had a little wander around the adjacent gardens, pleased to see signs of spring arriving.

It also gave a lovely side view of the house

The way back to the reception area was through the kitchen garden and past a stand of young birches.

A bowl of parsnip and apple soup at the café, and the purchase of some cards, some hellebores, and some narcissi completed my early spring visit to Stourhead.