09 April 2012

Godolphin House

I will admit to not enjoying my visit yesterday, I was harassed to join the National Trust as soon as I entered and when I said not today I got an intensive sales pitch which was quite aggressive. National Trust shouldn't behave like that in my books, yes encouragement and persuasion but this was more than that.

The house, where it has not yet been 'restored' was lovely, and very atmospheric but the house is used as a holiday home for up to 12 guest at between £1500 and £3000 a week and it is available for letting 3 weeks out of 4 and has a long list of people waiting to stay but the interior has been modernised too much and has lost the historic feel in many of the rooms which is a shame.

They are planning to restore the cider press house, which was out of bounds, currently covered in plastic and one of the guides stated that when they had the money they would restore it.. I would suggest that with the admittance charges of £4.20 just for the garden, and £7.50 as well as the high holiday rentals that money wouldn't be an issue but I am not sure how the restoration would be done.

I came away disappointed, I had looked forward to visiting an ancient manor house with lots of history and while there were a few features in some of the rooms, the overall restoration had too modern a feel and could have been handled more sympathetically in the kitchen/bathrooms particularly. The furniture was all supplied by the National Trust and some of it was more in keeping than the rest but overall I don't feel it had a lot to offer the person who loves history more than houses.

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