Tyntesfield

On our return from our break away we paid a visit to Tyntesfield, a Gothic pile with an imposing chapel in North Somerset and a recent acquisition by the National Trust. William Gibbs, a bird muck magnate who imported guano from South America for fertiliser in the 19C restyled a Regency house into this Victorian stately home. His last descendant living here died at the beginning of this century. He relieved his 19 heirs of an onerous duty of maintaining the house by letting the National Trust take on the building and its grounds which were all in a decrepit state.

Unfortunately the house and chapel were closed today but we enjoyed walking through the gardens and the parkland and visiting the 2 acres of walled kitchen garden full of young vegetables and pleached fruit trees and banks of glass houses.

The weather behaved itself!