Stourhead Manor House

Stourhead House was built in the 1720's. It was built by the Hoare family, owners of a bank. That bank is the only independent bank still surviving in England. The property consists of 2650 acres owned by the National Trust and another part still owned by the Hoare family.

The following 3 pictures show a closer view of the front of the house, one side of the house, and the back.


The grounds at Stourhead contain prehistoric hill forts and burial mounds.
The gardens at Stourhead are known worldwide for their beauty. In fact, after Julie and Matt returned to Texas, Katelyn told Julie that she was seeing something on TV that she had seen before---it was Stourhead! The show was saying that it is one of the best gardens in England.
The gardens were designed in the 1700's. It takes 5 fulltime gardeners and many part-time gardeners to maintain the property. I think that you will agree from the following photos that the place is quite breathtaking. (I know I am posting a lot of photos, but I really did leave out quite a few!)













Wealthy people of this time period were very concerned about impressing people. They liked to build structures called follies to give their guests interesting things to view from the windows of the houses or while on carriage rides around the property. The next photo is of Alfred's Tower, which is such a folly. In the 18th century it was fashionable to idealize past hereos, and it was especially fashionable for wealthy people to have statues, etc. of the hereos. Henry Hoare II decided in 1762 to honor the Saxon King Alfred the Great (who defeated invading Danes) by building a tower, or folly. The tower is made of about one million red bricks and contains a 100 ft. tall winding staircase which leads to a room and an observation platform, from which one can see three counties. When we visited Stourhead, the tower was closed for the day, so we did not get to go up to the observation platform.

The following picture shows a monument. The monument is actually on a small hill. When Lauren and Katelyn were here, they had to roll down the hill---several times! On the TV show that I mentioned, Julie said that the commentator mentioned how fun it was for children to roll down that hill!