24th – 30th August
This week we continue our slow progress along the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal our first stop being the Wightwick Bridge Visitor Moorings from her we walked the short distance to Wightwick Manor.
Wightwick Manor is a Victorian house in Wightwick Bank, a suburb of Wolverhampton. It was commissioned in 1887 from the architect Edward Ould by Theodore Mander of Mander Brothers, a Wolverhampton paint and varnish manufacturer. It stands adjacent to the Old Manor, a late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century building that was the original residence on the site.
The house is significant as an example of a domestic building constructed, decorated, and furnished under the influence of the Aesthetic movement and Arts and Crafts movement. It contains many examples of the works of William Morris and his firm Morris & Co., including wall hangings, wallpapers, and upholstery; tiles designed by William De Morgan; and stained glass designed by Charles Kempe. It also contains Pre-Raphaelite works of art, including works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Evelyn De Morgan, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, John Everett Millais, Elizabeth Siddal, and Leonard Shuffrey.
Much of the collection in the house was assembled by Sir Geoffrey and Lady Rosalind Mander, who inherited it in 1900. They gave the house and grounds to the National Trust in 1937, but continued adding to the contents until their deaths in 1962 and 1988 respectively.
The manor has been Grade I listed on the National Heritage List for England since July 1950, and its gardens are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
This is one of the best National Trust Houses we have visited and despite the drought the gardens were also well worth the visit. In 1780 The Mermaid Inn was one of 23 houses in the vicinity of old Wightwick Manor, it is certainly the nearest and where we went to dinner that night.
Wednesday saw us on the move again, a whole mile to five day moorings at Compton where there is a superb Spar shop (beautifully laid out and boasting a butcher and a backer), chip shop, launderette, and an off licence selling 12 330ml bottle cases of Brewdog Punk IPA at £9.50/case, the best price I could find on t’interweb was £17.40. I bought 2 cases.
Although the shops were important they were not as important as the bus service available from here, Bev and Dave had to return to Hinckley for an appointment, just six busses and around 4 hours got them back, a night in the Premier Inn, a short but important meeting next morning and another six busses and 4 hours to return in plenty of time to go for dinner in the Oddfellows Arms.
