I am interested in history and architecture and we visit a lot of National Trust properties. I joined when my friend, Jane, pointed out that they have the best tea rooms and lavatories and are ideal places for a comfort break and a rest when travelling alone! I joined when I was widowed, Bill was already a member — now we do our best to get our money’s worth!

Last week we visited 3 but there was only one I’d care to live in.

Brockhampton house was built in the reign of Henry VI, about 1425 (before the Tudors), from timber that grew in the Hereford hills. It has settled very comfortably into its surroundings over the last 6 centuries. Sitting on a green island surrounded by lily pads and irises and overflown by swooping swallows and squadrons of house martins.

I love it’s relative humility! No mod-cons; an unapologetic mediaeval family house. But this family thrived on its productive farm (unlike so many of the erstwhile owners of our heritage houses — they did not gamble away their resources or run out of heiresses to marry). The family who owned this house moved out in Georgian times to a new grander manor house further up the estate and this old house was occupied by estate workers. By the Victorian era it was in a parlous state but thankfully was rescued, improved and sensitively restored, under the watchful eye of an admirer, retired architect JC Buckler.

The whole aura of the place seems unchanged; minimal modern intrusions, the coolness and quietness of the great hall on a brilliant summer’s day, the chattering of baby birds in nests under the eaves of the gate house on the bridge over the moat. A sparrow chick peeps out from a chink in the brickwork.

Gatehouse timbers.

Mediaeval Gatehouse

View over the moat to the ruins of the Norman chapel.