Ightham Mote, Ightham, Kent

 

A fourteenth century moated manor house, Ightham Mote has been meticulously restored and maintained by the National Trust. Something of a gem.

Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, North London

A stately home at the north end of Hampstead Health, Kenwood House was built in the 17th century and remodelled extensively in the 18th century. Originally the seat of the Earls of Mansfield, the house now belongs to English Heritage and is home to a historic art collection. The surrounding parkland adjoins Hampstead Heath.

Hampton Court Palace and Gardens, South West London

Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France

One of the nine themed gardens at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, an early 20th century country house on the French Riviera. 

The Château of Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France,

A truly monumental chateau standing in very expansive grounds,  Chambord is a sprawling testament to the extraordinary power and wealth of the French monarchy during the Renaissance. The lengthy drive through the heavily-forested walled grounds is impressive enough, but your first sight of this 440-room building will stop you in your tracks. Built in the sixteenth century to serve as a hunting lodge for Francis I, Chambord is reputed to be the largest of the many chateaux in the Loire valley. Surrounded by a moat, the chateau's central cluster of ornate towers and 365 chimneys rise from a vast partially fortified building, which sits on a pancake-flat plain. Once you have taken in the long view, it is worth joining the queues to purchase an entrance ticket to have a wander around inside. 

Mottisfont, near Romsey, Hampshire

An eighteenth century manor house built on top of an Augustinian priory, Mottisfont is a heavily visited National Trust property in the valley of the River Test

Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, central London

Built in the second half of the seventeenth century, Kensington Palace has been home to Princess Diana, Will and Kate and other members of the Royal Family. Although it is a magnificent building, the Guide to the Architecture of London quotes architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner as saying: "Never did any monarch of the age...build a less ostentatious palace."

Cliveden, Taplow, Buckinghamshire

Surely one of the most extensive and evocative National Trust properties in the south east of England, Cliveden's varied and verdant 365 acres must warrant almost a day of your time. Start by walking the long, straight and wide driveway leading down from the Fountain of Love to the elegant Italianate mansion, which dates from the mid-1800s.  Now run as an upmarket hotel, the grand three storey house  dwarfs the lines of smart cars outside the main entrance. The stately centrepiece is flanked by two substantial wings, one with an attractive tower hosting a large blue clock, embellished with an elaborate gold frame. The rows of classical windows and balustrades strike the right balance between fussy detail and clean lines.  

Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, North Yorkshire

By National Trust standards, Nunnington Hall is a relatively modest country house and estate covering just eight acres. Still, the hall is a handsome and atmospheric stone building, mostly dating from the seventeenth century, surrounded by a series of luscious gardens adjacent to the river Rye in a picturesque corner of Yorkshire known as the Howardian Hills. Lacking outbuildings, the hall's National Trust reception desk, touting children's activity sheets for a hefty £2 apiece, tearoom and shop are all squeezed into the ground floor of the main house. In the large oak-panelled entrance hall, you are greeted by rows of stuffed stags’ heads, plus the morbid skins of several big cats, including a lion and cheetah, stretched out flat - trophies from hunting exhibitions by the last owner of Nunnington Hall - Colonel Fife.

Grounds of Greys Court, Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire

If you are approaching Greys Court from Henley, this little piece of olde England can be hard to find - the brown signposts with the National Trust symbol are few and far between. Even so, you may have to queue to get into the car park as Greys Court can get very busy on summer weekends and you should arrive before lunch if you want to be sure of a timed ticket to go inside the handsome red-brick sixteenth century manor house. But even if you miss out, the gardens and the views of the rolling Oxfordshire countryside should make the trip worthwhile. From the main lawn, there is a lovely bucolic view across to another fine old country house on the other side of the picturesque valley.

Buscot Park, Faringdon, Oxfordshire

A handsome Georgian stately home, reminiscent of a fine French chateau, in lavishly-landscaped gardens, Buscot Park is something of a treasure trove for art lovers. The substantial house is awash with both modern and historic paintings, including a Rembrandt portrait and Rossetti's striking Pandora, as well as sculptures. The extensive gardens are dotted with striking contemporary and classical water features, temples and statues. Through the gates in the walled garden, you can admire a beguiling series of man-made and highly-symmetrical waterwalls cascading down from a stone goddess framed by Greek-style pillars. The undulating grounds are partitioned by very high, red-brick walls, some broad lawns, a large lake and a series of long, narrow ponds. Nearly everywhere you turn, your eye is directed down carefully-crafted corridors, lined with trees, hedges and stone walls, towards features in the distance. Serving as the cafe and National Trust reception office, is the very large stable block, as big as a row of terrace houses, with its own clock tower, rising from the tall, tiled roof.

Hughenden Manor, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

A red-brick, eighteenth-century manor house with fussy little Victorian parapets, Hughenden Manor isn't particularly striking or attractive. But it is the former country home of Benjamin Disraeli, billed as "Britain's most unlikely prime minister" and it pulls in the crowds. On a sunny spring Sunday, the National Trust sometimes issues timed entry tickets and you may have to wait two hours to get inside the house. In the meantime, you can wander around the orderly garden with its displays of white tulips standing to attention surrounded by forget-me-nots, play croquet on the immaculate lawn or go for a walk. A two-mile round trip takes you up to a high vantage point next to a stone monument to Disraeli, from where you can survey the suburbs of High Wycombe encroaching on to the farms and woodland around the manor. Alternatively you can wander down through the many trees, past the elegant Georgian vicarage, the early seventeenth century almshouses and the parish church to a leisurely river where cows laze on the banks. Or you can head for the restaurant in the original stable block, which has a cobbled courtyard that makes a fine sun trap.

Kingston Lacy, Wimborne Minster, Dorset

Approached via a B road lined by more than 700 ancient beach trees, Kingston Lacy is an elegant mansion dating from the seventeenth century and boasting a spectacularly ostentatious and ornate interior. In the dozen or so rooms that have been restored by the National Trust to look as they would have in their Edwardian hey day, there is almost too much to take in. Built originally for the Bankes family after Corfe Castle was demolished by Cromwell's Roundheads, the house became a treasure trove for an avid collector of antiquities - William Bankes, who was banished to Italy in the mid nineteenth century after an alleged homosexual act. Particularly noteworthy is the extraordinary Spanish room with its lavish ceiling salvaged from a Venetian palace and its painted leather-clad walls, lined with an imposing series of portraits. In fact, Kingston Lacy is awash with paintings including works by the likes of Van Dyck, Titian and Brueghel, while just about every room is stuffed full of intricately-carved chests, panels and furniture, together with rare and eclectic ornaments, such as a statue of a boy doing a handstand and balancing a vase on the soles of his feet. In the large library, 31 rusty iron keys to the gates of Corfe Castle hang over the fireplace, reminding you that the Bankes didn't always have it so good.

Mottisfont Abbey and Gardens, near Romsey, Hampshire

Surrounded by a large estate incorporating a beautiful stretch of the Test river, Mottisfont is a medieval abbey converted first into a Tudor manor house and then into an eighteenth century mansion. With an elegant red-brick heart flanked by grey, sturdy stone wings studded with flint stones, the house lacks the harmonious appeal of many National Trust properties. Inside, a series of spacious rooms on the ground floor are open to the public. With the exception of the trompe I'oeil drawing room, much of the decor, with doors painted the same lurid colours as the walls, and fairly innocuous period furniture is somewhat crude and plain by National Trust standards. The collection of wishy-washy paintings from the early twentieth century also won't appeal to everyone. Only in the Red Room, where a corner of the old stone abbey is visible, and the atmospheric vaulted cellar, do you get a real sense of the site's long, rich history.

Nymans, Handcross, West Sussex

A charming ruined manor house with picturesque grounds, encompassing 35 acres of acclaimed gardens and 275 acres of woodland, Nymans commands pastoral views across the Sussex Weald. From the entrance gate, Lime Avenue takes a circuitous route down to the house, surrounded, in the spring, by hundreds of daffodils, following the crest of the hillside overlooking an arboretum and the woods below. Alternatively, you can thread your way through the top garden, the rose garden and the walled garden, which are punctuated with statues and manicured, ornamental hedges. Just below the top garden is a sloping bank of thick, soft grass, which makes a fine spot for a picnic with a view.

Hampton Court Palace, south west London

The extravagant, lion-topped stone gateway, the elongated chimneys and sprawling red-brick Tudor facade of Hampton Court Palace are a remarkable and inviting sight from the busy A308 that mars this picturesque and historic part of south west of London. The path from the gates to the palace is flanked on one side by a fine red-brick terrace and on the other by a tree-lined stretch of the Thames. Up close, you are struck by the scale of this well-preserved and handsome palace, which was built by social-climber Cardinal Wolsey in the early sixteenth century before being commandeered by the egomaniac, King Henry VIII. While the grassy Base Court is being renovated, you enter via an atmospheric cobbled courtyard enclosed by weathered red-brick walls, where you may be greeted by a couple dressed as medieval aristocrats. They usher you into the extensive Tudor Kitchens, where chefs in period costume may be preparing smelly medieval meals on ancient wooden tables and roasting meat on spits in front of the huge open fire. Above the kitchens is the extraordinary Great Hall, notable for its soaring and ornate hammer-beam roof, lavishly-carved wooden screens and elaborate sixteenth century tapestries.

Standen, West Hoathly Road, East Grinstead

Late-Victorian country house lavishly decorated in the Arts and Crafts style, which means lots of carpets and wallpaper with dizzying patterns of swirling fruit, flowers, birds and other flora and fauna. Not everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, but the house is also packed with period fixtures and fittings, giving a good insight into how the wealthy lived at the tail end of the 19th century. The upstairs windows also offer pleasant views of rolling Sussex countryside and the National Trust, which owns Standen, lays on Arts and Crafts-themed quizzes and colouring sheets for kids.

Polesden Lacey, near Bookham, Surrey

A refined Regency mansion, painted a creamy yellow, overlooking an unusually serene and beautiful valley, Polesden Lacey has one of the best settings of any National Trust property in south east England. Adult visitors tend to sit on the great, sweeping lawn on the south side of the house, admiring the pastoral view, while their children hurtle down the slope and struggle back up again. But make time to wander through the fine walled rose gardens, admiring the many statues, past the herbaceous border, across the thatched footbridge and through the old kitchen garden. On the other side of the south lawn, you can stroll between the stone pillars topped with diminutive lions, on to the Terrace Walk, a wide grassy avenue, which runs for hundreds of yards along the north side of the valley. Beyond the stone sculptures, inscribed with the poetry of Pope, are more heart-warming views of the luscious, idyllic valley. Access to Polesden Lacey's gardens and grounds is £6.50 for an adult, but worth every penny, particularly if you linger on a summer's evening until most of the visitors have gone and you can enjoy this tranquil countryside at its best. 9/10

Chateau de Villandry, Vallee de la Loire

The substantial Renaissance Chateau de Villandry serves primarily as a handsome backdrop for the imaginative, but meticulous and highly-regimented gardens. Just beyond the chateau's moat, are a series of large squares marked out with boxed hedges, low-level uniform flower beds and small trees trimmed to precision, each symbolising a kind of love from tender to romantic to passionate. Vibrant shades of green are laced with splashes of colour. Nearby is an aromatic and bountiful kitchen garden, while another large section is given over to topiary with rows of ice-cream shaped-trees each spliced into horizontal sections. Children will find the maze, with its central viewing platform, great fun and will also want to linger in the fine wooden playground. Circling the chateau, you pass a peaceful lake lined by a row of trees broken only by a stone bridge positioned dead-centre. Climbing up a steep bank takes you into a small wood with good views through the trees of the gardens and the venerable village church beyond.

Ightham Mote, Ivy Hatch, near Sevenoaks, Kent

Postcard-perfect, moated manor house dating from the fourteenth century, Ightham Mote nestles in a peaceful valley only a few miles from the suburbia of Sevenoaks. Owned by the National Trust, the miniature stone bridges across the moat, the cobbled courtyard and the ancient timber frames of the manor house quickly conjure up a bygone era.