Wightwick Manor and Gardens

In 1937 Geoffrey Mander, a local paint manufacturer and Liberal MP, did something remarkable – he persuaded the National Trust to accept a house for the nation that was just 50 years old.

Geoffrey had inherited Wightwick in 1900, a house designed in an ‘Old English’ style by Midlands architect Edward Ould and built for his parents, Theodore and Flora Mander, between 1887–1893. 

While they lived in the house, Theodore and Flora took inspiration from Oscar Wilde’s lecture on 'the House Beautiful'; as a result, the interiors reflect Wilde’s commitment to the principles of the Aesthetic Movement and the ideals of ‘art for art’s sake’. Wilde’s influence can be seen in the collection of objects from Japan and China and the designs of William Morris and his British Arts and Crafts contemporaries.

Having given the house to the Trust, Geoffrey and his second wife Rosalie became its live-in curators, opening the house to the public and adding to its contents, in particular a remarkable collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Marie Spartali Stillman, Elizabeth Siddal and many others. The collection now forms one of the largest public collections of work by female artists in Britain.

You’ll also find a separate gallery dedicated to the work of 19th-century painter Evelyn De Morgan and her husband, ceramicist William De Morgan, on loan from the De Morgan Foundation. Look out for changing exhibitions of their work.