Our work
Mansion re-discovered
© National Trust/Attingham Park
Our Attingham Re-discovered project has been bringing the house and grounds back to life since 2006. Our visitors are joining us on this exciting journey, witnessing the conservation and restoration.
The work we do each year depends on staff capacity and income generated on-site. It's important to move slowly and carefully, not rushing decisions. There's no project end date; initially it was to last six years but its success encouraged us to be more ambitious.
Rather than closing off whole areas until they're ‘ready’, we aim to demonstrate ‘conservation in action’ so that visitors can see experts at work.
By engaging our visitors in the debates, we hope to make clear why decisions need to be so carefully thought through, why they often take so long, cost a lot of money and that there are usually no right or wrong answers.
The re-discovery of Attingham is fascinating - we hope you'll come to view our progress.
New for 2012: roof project
Re-creating the Butler’s Pantry
The servants' rooms on the basement level are being re-discovered. Visitors will soon be able to enter the Butler’s suite of rooms which were previously closed to the public.
2 Ladies, 4 Rooms, 100 Years Apart
This exhibition compares the 2nd and 8th Ladies Berwick. Discover how many objects Sophia had in her rooms in 1827 and find out how Teresa revived Attingham in the 1920s.
Fruit trees
The walls have now been wired so that fruit trees can once again be trained against them. February saw the first planting of plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots.
Bees
Bees have been kept at Attingham for many years. They are now making a come-back with hives in the orchard, a Regency Bee House and a see-through demonstration hive by the Bothy.
Half way there
2010 saw the arrival of three pigs to plough up the next quarter of the garden. This year we have it back in full production making a full acre of vegetables, fruit and flowers.
Walled Garden re-discovered
© National Trust/Paul Highnam
Come and see how Attingham’s Walled Garden is being brought back to life with vegetables, fruit and flowers, glasshouses and an old gardeners’ Bothy.
Built in the 1780s the two acre garden provided food for the whole household at Attingham Park. Exotic fruits such as pineapples, peaches and grapes grown in the glasshouses adorned the regency dining table, root vegetables filled the underground stores and apples and pears from the three-acre orchard were arrayed in the fruit store above.
The 20th-century saw the gradual decline of the garden. By the 1960s the fruit trees around the walls had all been ripped out, the well and dipping pool filled in and the ground was turned into a football field. In May 2008 the plough went in and the first vegetables were grown after a gap of many years. Now half the garden is back in production, providing salads and soup for the tea room as well as a wide variety of produce sold in the National Trust shop.
Projects we've completed so far
© National Trust/Attingham Park
The Ambassador’s dinner
The Dining Room is set for a grand evening meal in the 1830s, when 3rd Lord Berwick returned to Attingham with his French porcelain, ambassadorial silverware and glistening candelabras. The whole effect is stunning.
Restoring the Octagon Room
We have been restoring the striking decorative scheme in Lord Berwick’s study. Now re-decorated, with extravagant curtains and a new carpet the room has regained its important role on the masculine side of the house.
Attingham's beautiful Boudoir
The walls and ceiling of this delicate feminine room had become darkened with years of dust, dirt and soot. They now glisten and shine once again after being painstakingly cleaned by a painting conservator.