Located in Devon, Knightshayes Court is a grand Gothic-revival Victorian mansion with parkland. The house is considered to be quirky in design and not to everyone's taste; it is the work of William Burges. The garden and parkland contains a varied collection of 1200 plant species, and there is also a walled kitchen garden. The first house was built in the later 1700s for Benjamin Dickinson, who was a wealthy merchant and mayor or Tiverton. The current house was built about 100 years later and slightly up on the hill to avoid views over a lace factory and other factories in the area.
One of the people that lived in the house most recently was Joyce Wethered, a female golfer. The house contains a room with some golfing items and information dedicated to her.
Knightshayes Court has been owned by the National Trust since 1972 and opened to the public since 1974. All of the flowers in the house are fresh from the gardens as the last occupants of the house specified to the National Trust as a condition. These fresh flowers made such a huge difference in showing off the beauty of the rooms.
I first went to explore the walled garden and was surprised to see some late summer flowers in bloom during my mid-September visit and the start of the harvest of pumpkins, squash, and grapes.
After exploring the walled garden, I had a walk to the mansion. It is probably a five minute walk away from the walled garden.
There are some interesting gargoyles on the front of the house.
The entrance hall or great hall has high ceilings and painted with designs and a lot of detail.
This led off to some smaller rooms.
We were told of the game room and the different carved figures around the room are different animals designed as the "seven deadly sins".
The dining room had a few paintings, though some of them are suspected as being fakes. The ceiling has been carved and painted with mottos around the top of the ceiling, the fireplace, and so on. I think that this strong sense of detail and taste was not appreciated by everyone.
A smaller octagonal-shaped room showed off some ceramics and additional paintings. This is the "Morning Room". It also had nice views along one side.
On the other side of the Morning Room is the library. The library is a beautiful room with carved and painted ceilings and opened into another dining area.
Through the library is another dining area with a fireplace that has a lot of detail carved into it, and this opens into a sun room and conservatory area. This room contained some paintings and expensive furniture.
There are some nice views from the gardens, and the parkland does span on for miles.
The gardens along the side of the house are set in little "rooms" with a different theme of each, such as hedging or ponds. Beyond this is more parkland with sculpted landscape and planted trees.
I enjoyed the visit to Knightshayes and enjoyed seeing the house and the gardens. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the full house open due to the pandemic, so hopefully it will be open when I next am in the area to visit it.
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