Victorian Country House Prosperity

A very short and very opportunistic post.

Yesterday evening's Antiques Roadshow on BBC1 featured Wightwick Manor, a National Trust property near Wolverhampton in the former Midlands industrial heartland of England. Having blogged earlier in the year on Standen, the National Trust property near East Grinstead in leafy Sussex, I was struck by a few comparison factors:

  • Wightwick was completed in 1887, Standen in 1894
  • Wightwick was the home of Theodore Mander, a successful Wolverhampton industrialist; Standen was the home of James Beale, a successful London solicitor, but in the firm of Beale & Co that had been founded in Birmingham in the 1820s
  • The hand of William Morris is evident in the interior design of both properties, and Wightwick contains a collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings
  • My Standen blogpost went on to discuss Morris's home at The Red House in Bexleyheath, and a further red - the office of Morris,Marshall, Faulkner & Co in London's Red Lion Square.

Setting the two alongside each other is quite fun.

The author is a City of London and City of Westminster Guide, who runs guided walks in the City and in Westminster. For further information please tabs.