Snowshill Manor is a National Trust property located in the village of Snowshill, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. It is a sixteenth-century country house, best known for its twentieth-century owner, Charles Paget Wade, an eccentric who amassed an enormous collection of objects that interested him. He gave the property to the National Trust in 1951, and his collection is still housed there.
Manor house
The property is a typical
Cotswolds manor house,
made from local stone; the main part of the house dates from the 16th century. It is a Grade II*
listed building, having been so designated since 4 July 1960. Also listed are the brewhouse, the dovecote, some of the garden buildings, the wall and gate-piers, and the group of four Manor Cottages.
[
]
History
The earliest surviving part of the Manor, the rooms named and now known as Dragon, Nadir, Ann's, Music and Seraphim by Charles Paget Wade, was built around 1550 and it is probable that this section of the Manor was joined to a contemporaneous building to the south, which was later demolished. In the 1600s the Manor was again extended southwards and attic rooms added. In the early part of the 18th century the house was owned by one William Sambach, who added extra rooms on the south-west corner in about 1720. He also added a new main door in the south front, placing the Sambach coat of arms in the pediment above it, which is now the main entrance to the house. After several further changes of owner, John Small of Clapham took over the property, being the first of a series of absentee landlords: for the next 150 years the house was occupied by tenant farmers, until its purchase in 1919 by Charles Paget Wade.
Wade was an architecture, artist-craftsman, collector, poetry and heir to the family fortune. He restored the property, living in the small cottage in the garden and using the Manor house as a home for his collection of objects. By the time of his death he had amassed over 22,000 objects.
He gave the property and the contents of this collection to the National Trust in 1951.
Collections
The house contains an eclectic collection of thousands of objects, gathered over the years by Charles Paget Wade, whose motto was "Let nothing perish". The collection includes toys, Samurai armour, musical instruments, and clocks.[
]
Priest's House
Wade was an eccentric man and lived in the Priest's House while housing his collection in the manor. It is said to be haunted by a monk, and by the ghost of a young woman forced in 1604 to marry against her will in one of the upstairs rooms.
Garden
The garden at Snowshill was laid out by Wade, in collaboration with Arts and Crafts movement architect, M. H. Baillie Scott, between 1920 and 1923. Their elaborate layout resembles a series of outside rooms seen as an extension to the house. Features include terraces and ponds, and the gardens demonstrate Wade's fascination with colours and scents.
