Trust In Me - Revisiting Wightwick

On Friday we decided that a National Trust trip was long overdue so we grabbed our membership cards and fired up Patrice. Our destination was the magnificent shrine to the Arts and Crafts movement, Wightwick Manor (pronounced Witt-ick), a 12-mile drive from our front door. We'd last visited in July 2021 (HERE) when we'd wandered around the garden in the glorious sunshine.

On Friday morning we'd woken up to the first frost of the season, so it was thermals and boots this time round.

Wightwick Manor was gifted to the National Trust in 1937 by then owner, Geoffrey Mander, the first house given under the country house scheme which had been introduced a few months earlier. Sir Geoffrey continued to live in the house with his wife, Lady Mander, opening the building to the public on Thursday afternoons. As the property got more popular the National Trust provided helpers to welcome guests and offer guided tours.

Wightwick Manor was a survivor of the fickle nature of fashion. Its Aesthetic Movement interiors, heavy with the designs by William Morris and his associates, had almost been lost in the 1920s but found new life in the 1930s and 40s. With its barley twist brick chimneys and oak framed white-washed walls, the design of the house looked to be something from five centuries earlier, rather than just five decades old. 

When the wealthy industrialist, Theodore Mander, commissioned the building of a new manor on Wightwick Bank in the Old English style in 1887 he started the Mander family's love for Victorian art & design which would unfold over a century of collecting and preservation. However, his untimely death in 1900 left the care and development of the new home to his eldest son, Geoffrey (1882 - 1962). Educated at Harrow & Cambridge, Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander served in the Royal Flying Corps in WWI and was a practising lawyer. He entered the Houses of Parliament as a Liberal MP for Wolverhampton West in 1929. He was chairman for the family firm, Mander Brothers, for a generation, a major manufacturer of paints, inks and varnishes in the British Empire.

Sir Geoffrey Mander remarried in 1930. His new wife, Rosalie Glynn Grylls, gave up her ambitions to be a Liberal MP and focused her attention on English literature and art. Starting with a biography of Mary Shelley, her surroundings at Wightwick soon inspired her to research the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Rossetti. Rosalie was a great cat lover - this photo takes pride of place in the sitting room.

Is it just me or does that big boy look a bit like Frank?

Wightwick had no Pre-Raphaelite art prior to 1937. Once the house was put into the care of the National Trust, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Mander started to buy art to put on display for their visitors. The first was a portrait of Jane Morris by Rossetti (the redhead in the collage below). Over time a unique collection developed, with some major pieces supplied by the National Trust, and small works and sketches either purchased or donated. The collection has over 70 works by D.G Rossetti; 50 by Edward Burne-Jones; 23 by Evelyn De Morgan and 20 by Millais. 

Surprisingly William Morris never came to the house, nor did his company formally design for it. Instead, all the wallpapers, fabric wall coverings and soft furnishings were bought through the Morris & Co shop or catalogue.

Unlike the artwork, Morris & Co designs were included in the 1887 and 1893 buildings. However, they were much enhanced after the 1937 saving of the property, when Sir Geoffrey expanded the Manor's Morris collection. This included sketches for Morris designs, as well as large items of furnishings, such as carpets and curtains.

Within the grounds of Wightwick Manor, the Malthouse gallery is run in partnership with the De Morgan Foundation, displaying drawings and paintings by the pioneering female artist, Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919), and the creations of her husband, the pre-eminent ceramic designer, William De Morgan (1839-1917).  The Foundation annually rotates the collection between three sites so the exhibits on display were different to the ones we'd seen on our last visit.

Wightwick's gardens are beautiful all year round.  Whilst we wandered about admiring the wonderful Autumnal colours, the gardeners were hard at work planting hundreds of bulbs. We're already looking forward to revisiting in the Spring.

With booking no longer required, Friday's visit was very much spur-of-the-moment and I'd dressed in minutes, pulling out some trusty old favourites from the wardrobe, a maxi dress bought from Anokhi in Jaipur in 2019, the vintage velvet jacket I'd had for years and my plum fedora. I was taken aback by the compliments I got paid by visitors and National Trust volunteers alike who all said that I couldn't have looked more appropriate for the setting.

The National Trust says that nature is a source of comfort, offering space where we can slow down and take stock. Gardens bursting with colour, woodlands shaded by leafy canopies, the simplicity of a rushing stream and panoramic drama in the skies – these can answer our need for quiet and inspiration. They're not wrong. Being amongst nature really is a balm for the soul.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the thoughtful words, emails and messages you sent us after the sudden loss of our beautiful boy, Frank. Your kindness means everything.