Dyrham Park is a beautiful baroque country house set in 110 hectares (274 acres) of garden and parkland, designed by Talman for William Blathwayt, Secretary at War during the reign of William III. As a consquence of Blathwayt's royal connections and influential uncle, Thomas Povey, the house was to become a showcase for his taste in Dutch decorative arts. The collection includes delftware, paintings and furniture; later 18th-century additions include furniture by Gillow and Linnell. Amongst the restored Victorian domestic rooms are kitchens, tenants' hall and delft-tiled dairy.
History shows us that a new garden has been created at Dyrham Park every 100 years over the last three centuries.
Yet, when Dyrham Park was gifted to the National Trust in 1956, the West Garden was famously described as a ‘donkey paddock’. It had long been neglected.
Resources and funds available to us between 1956 and the mid-1990s, meant that we had primarily been managing it as a setting for the house.
