The treasure house of the Cotswolds

Once described as 'a house for the evening hours, surely the loveliest spell of the day', Snowshill Manor is a typical, traditional Cotswold house, built of golden yellow local stone and set on a hillside above the Vale of Evesham.

The Manor holds one of the most remarkable collections that the National Trust maintains and is surrounded by an intriguing and intimate garden.

The house

The manor of Snowshill was owned by Winchcombe Abbey from 821 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. It then passed to the Crown, and was given as a gift to Katherine Parr, wife to King Henry VIII.

Since then, many alterations and additions have been made by the house's many owners and tenants. The main part of the current house dates from around 1500. It was altered and extended in the 17th century, and the south front displays classical details of c1720.

By 1919, the manor was a semi-derelict farm. It was bought and restored by a man named Charles Paget Wade. Ironically the neglect that the house had suffered from was exactly what attracted Wade. A house with no modern additions or alterations was the ideal place to display his historic and unique collection.

The house was closed in 2004 for a major re-servicing project, which became known as 'Wade In'. It involved re-wiring, and installing a new fire, security and environmental monitoring system.

We also wanted to improve the current lighting to produce an effect closer to that in which Charles Wade intended to present his collection of 22,000 objects

The density of the collection meant that there was not room to complete this work while it was in-situ so the entire collection was packed up and moved.

During mid-November 2004, work commenced to return the Wade collection to its rightful home ready for re-opening on 25 March 2005.

Charles Paget Wade

JB Priestly described Wade as 'My eccentric, but charming friend of the fantastic manor house.'

Charles Wade was an architect and craftsman from Yoxford in Suffolk, who inherited sugar estates in the West Indies from his father. This enabled him to devote his life to amassing his enormous and varied collection of craftsmanship, which he acquired mainly from antique shops and dealers in the UK.

Wade spent many hours in the Manor house arranging and restoring his collection, whilst living in the old priest's house in the courtyard.

©NTPL / Andreas von Einsiedel

The contents

Wade amassed his collection from 1900 until 1951, when he gave it with the Manor to the National Trust. His desire was that people could learn to appreciate and love good craftsmanship from the objects he had collected.

There are 22,000 items, plus a 2000 piece costume collection. Wade believed that every object was invested with the spirit of the craftsman and the age in which it was created. He raised even everyday functional objects like butter stamps, cow bells and locks to the status traditionally given to paintings and sculpture.

So the visitor to Snowshill can view clocks, bicycles, automatons, children's toys and even 26 suits of Samurai armour. Wade loved colour and, after collecting many examples of early English craftsmanship, he began to look to the Middle and Far East for objects using a bright and imaginative colours.

The garden

Wade saw the land surrounding the manor house as an ideal opportunity to create a garden, 'Far estranged from maddening riot and the busy haunts of men'. He designed it in collaboration with Arts and Crafts architect, M H Baillie-Scott laid out its terraces and ponds between 1920 and 1923 on the site of the old farmyard.