Photo gallery

© NTPL / Rupert Truman

The East Front of Montacute House sparkles with glass. Glittering windows were the height of fashion when the house was built and glass covers 40 per cent of Montacute's facade.

© National Trust

Vita Sackville-West, creator of Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, was asked to design a new planting scheme for Montacute's East Court in 1945. It was only to be replaced in the 1950s by a more colourful and frost-resistant design from Phyllis Reiss, creator of nearby Tintinhull Garden. In summer, you'll find the mixed borders of old roses and bright perennials at their vibrant best.

© NTPL

This painting of Edward VI, the boy king, hangs in the Dining Room. Edward was Henry VIII's only 'true' son and male heir, the fruitful outcome from his brief but happy marriage to third wife Jane Seymour. The portrait is a later version of one painted for Henry, shortly before his death in 1547.

© NTPL / WH Rendell

Husbands take heed. This early 17th-century panel in the Great Hall is a cautionary tale set in plaster of the consequences of upsetting your wife. The husband is first caught by his good lady having a sly drink while minding the baby. She punishes him with a bash on the head. To cap his shame, the incident is witnessed by a neighbour who reports it to the village fathers and the hapless man is made to 'Ride the Stang' through the village.

© NTPL / Rupert Truman

Montacute takes its name from the pointed hill ('mons acutus' in Latin) to the south-west of the house. Now called St Michael's Hill, it is topped by a folly built in 1760.

© NTPL / Richard Pink

A changing selection of samplers from the Goodhart Sampler Collection hangs in the Clifton Maybank corridor. They date from the early 17th to the 20th century and were collected and donated to the National Trust by Dr Douglas Goodhart. Dr Goodhart's passion for collecting samplers was so intense that reportedly he would have to stop at any antique shop he drove past, much to the horror of his children who would frantically shout for him to drive on.

© NTPL

The stained glass in the Library and Great Hall is one of Montacute House's treasures and a rare survivor. Brilliantly coloured, the stained glass panels in the Library show off 42 heraldic shields of the Phelips family, their neighbours and powerful allies at court, and of course the Royal arms.

© Dylan Lumborg

This bulging, wavy yew hedge started life cut straight. It was planted by Marquess Curzon, when he rented the house, to screen the servants' path behind and save him from seeing the staff while he relaxed on the lawn. The hedge got its undulating shape during the severe winter of 1947 when heavy snow ate into it. It has been kept this way ever since. In a brush with stardom, Kate Winslet's distraught Marianne ran past the hedge in the rain, in the 1995 film 'Sense and Sensibility'.