Snowshill Manor contains Charles Paget Wade's extraordinary collection of craftmanship and design, including musical instruments, clocks, toys, bicycles, weavers' and spinners' tools and Japanese armour. Run on organic principles, the intimate garden is laid out as a series of outdoor rooms, with terraces and ponds, and wonderful views across the Cotswold countryside.
Once described as 'a house for the evening hours, surely the loveliest spell of the day', Snowshill Manor is a typical, traditional Cotswold house, built of golden yellow local stone and set on a hillside above the Vale of Evesham.
The Manor holds one of the most remarkable collections that the National Trust maintains and is surrounded by an intriguing and intimate garden.
The manor of Snowshill was owned by Winchcombe Abbey from 821 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. It then passed to the Crown, and was given as a gift to Katherine Parr, wife to King Henry VIII.
This south west sloping site was transformed by Charles Wade into individual garden rooms, each with their own style. Being unable to see the whole garden at once lends it a certain mystery and intrigue. The garden contains various architectural features and a profusion of colourful and scented flowers and plants. Most of the gates and garden furniture are painted in ‘Wade Blue’, a colour Charles himself developed. He believed there was no green paint to better nature’s own greens.
