Why This Gothic Cotswold Mansion Was Abandoned | Woodchester Mansion With Great British Architecture

Hi there and welcome to the Cotswold Explorer. I'm Robin Shatbrough and we are exploring the beautiful region of the Cotswolds in South West England. One of the most extraordinary things about this region is the huge number of great country houses ranging in use these days from private homes to communes and grand hotels to curated museums. The one thing they all have in common is a fascinating history. In this series we're going to show you how they came to be built, how they've survived the and what they do now to keep going in a time when their original purpose can seem so archaic. Thanks to the National Trust, a couple of other building trusts and some of the braver owners of these amazing country houses, we've been given exclusive access to tell their spectacular stories. Welcome to our new series Cotswold Stately Homes. Today you find Ross and me at the incredible Woodchester Mansion in the darkest heart of the Cotswolds. This huge and wonderful neo-gothic masterpiece was never lived in, never even completed and for a long while just left to deteriorate. Not any longer. It's now run by the Woodchester Mansion Trust who for the benefit of all of us guarantee the future of a building we should all go and visit at least once. It's our enormous privilege to be taken on a personal tour of this fascinating place by the couple who live in a bit of the house and work to maintain and look after it on our behalf, Max and Cassandra. These two have been living here for over a decade. Anyone under the age of 15 who is lucky enough to be related or even friendly with these two has had a lifetime of the greatest playground in the entire world and we're going to try and do our best to show this place is the magic spot it really is. So excited were we by Woodchester we couldn't resist bringing our friend and YouTube colleague Daniel whose great British architecture channel is another visit we're worth making. He'll be popping up at various places in this film not least climbing into the bath just for fun. Just wait. Daniel, hello nice to see you. Nice to meet you. I'm really grateful to you for joining us here because this place is astonishing but I don't think my expertise is up to this. I'm going to be picking your brain but I think you're going to enjoy it because I mean it isn't like normal Cotswolds but it is quite fun. Tell me a little bit just a little bit about your channel quickly so that we can so that our viewers can know where you get up. Well it's mainly a channel on Instagram where I just go around mainly churches but historic houses and castles and just tell the architectural and historical stories of those buildings. You know it takes me everywhere from the right top of Scotland you know down here in the Cotswolds so I'm delighted to be here. Well it's wonderful to have you and of course there's a wonderful synergy between what we do. I mean we concentrate slightly on one particular area. I admire your youth and energy to go around the rest of the rest of the country but let's go and have a look at this extraordinary place. We have seen the inside of this already but I'm looking forward to showing it to you. I can't wait to see inside. It's going to be fun. Let's go. Firstly the valley in which the house sits. It has a long history of habitation since ancient times and the valley and its surroundings attracted early attention from the highly distinguished Ducey family. Worcester was one of their country seats for a couple of hundred years until in 1848 they put the estate on the market. Living in Leamington at the time was a wealthy Roman Catholic convert called William Lee and he was on the lookout for somewhere he could found a Roman Catholic community and spend his considerable wealth in support of his newfound religion. Worcester met most of his requirements. There was no Catholic church within 15 miles in any direction. The community was ripe for the approaches of a determined Catholic missionary. He bought the estate and moved in to the extended gardener's cottage called Park House which despite being made even larger by Lee, eventually containing 15 bedrooms, was still always referred to as the cottage. And so we begin our privileged tour of this amazing house with Max and Cassandra, the caretakers who live here and who can give us an unparalleled insight into the building itself. This this was had a very religious basis this building. It did, it did. William Lee, the gentleman that had this house commissioned, was part of the Oxford movement. He inherited a lot of money when he was very young but unfortunately no business sense. So one of his aims was to set up a Catholic community so he built a number of houses in the local village of Nymphsfield and the monastery and a church town in Woodchester which is sort of further down the valley that way. But this was going to be the last final project. This was to be the big multi-generational family home which as you'll see as we go around never got finished. It couldn't be finished. He'd bitten off the final bit more than he could chew. Yes. And so the chapel is central as it often was in many evil houses but rather less often in Victorian houses. It's the centre of the... It very much is. Shall we head in that direction? Let's do that very thing. So you can see in various areas where they're building up the layers of lime plaster. So on the ceiling here you've got finished. Right. Then you've got your first little coat. Then you've got a scratch coat and it's a fantastic teaching skill to be able to see. Building up. And this was this was how they left it. This is as they left it. Very few things we've added. So some examples are the floor we're standing on. Right. To make it wheelchair accessible. As much as possible. Yeah. We've reglazed some of the windows using the glass that was appropriate for what's there. In some cases it's 70% if not more original glass. But there are some areas where we still need to do that work or it says part of a larger project. So we're doing as much as we can. I'm amazed there was any glass left at all really after all this. After all vandalism and unfortunately there are there has been some areas which has got a lot of damage. But we are slowly but surely getting there. But this from the point of view of the architectural historian is completely fascinating because you're seeing every layer of stuff. Yes. Suddenly deserted. Unlike the experience of seeing a house that's been gutted as you mentioned by fire. Which is sometimes interesting but not like this. There's the intricacies of how it's built that gets lost. Even down to you can be incredibly nerdy in this place and go oh the mortar mix here is different from that in that room. But it's wonderful. Fantastic for education. It really really is. This room here would have been the game larder. So their Victorian fridge. So there are vents that brought cold air up from underground. There's vents on this side of the wall here that would go down underneath the cistern to bring extra cold air and then it would have gone up through the vent there and at the roof level it's disguised as a chimney. So all the nasty smells have been taken away. So great hooks with gear hanging on them. Things of that nature. You would have had marble slabs on these brackets on the walls so that would have acted as a fridge. So you're going from servant kitchen area. Yeah. We literally cross here and then we're into more ecclesiastical areas. So through here if we pop through this way. Yeah. We have the sacristy and we also have the confessional booth at the entrance to all the all the entrances to the chapel. I'll get my words right. You've got these little fonts here that are carved in and there's they're dotted around so you can. Holy water. So you can cross yourself as you go in. But. And this is a stone built confessional. Yes. I don't think I've ever seen one of those before. So it's it's all it's all integral. One thing I did mention to you outside is during World War II we had American soldiers here. But we do have here on the wall we have H.P. McCackie March 1944 U.S. Army there. So there are various bits where people have signed the walls. They couldn't resist and left their mark. No. I mean it's one of those things like what what do you preserve? Yeah. While it's not original it's also part of the social history. It's essential to have that kind of thing. In other life it was meant to have. Absolutely. It has had a life. And these wonderful. This is another little fountain. Yes. Water supply. So we're lucky enough to have all the original sketches. So anything you see on say one of the plans here. Yeah. So you've got this. So we know that that would have been carved into some sort of animal head. Oh I see. But it was unfinished. But it was unfinished. You've got the same again in the chapel which is the next room we'll go into where you can still see the pencil lines of a little grotesque that was going to be carved into at the end of an arch. So as we come into here if you crane your head upwards you've got the beautiful carving of the chapel. So this is some of the finest carving in the building. So other than the four dogs which is the second big boss coming in and the two green men which are almost directly above me here. Everything else would have been a plant that grew on the estate. Oh right. So they represent local local flora. Yes. So that comes from the chap that built this was a man called Benjamin Bucknell. So he was a great follower of Ile-le-Duc. Oh was he. Okay. Hence the gargoyle similarities. Yes. Gargoyle similarities. There's a few elements of carving. There is a local legend that some of the gargoyles were stolen from Notre Dame which is absolute. It won't be true because the stones are all wrong but on the other hand the design is reminiscent of. I mean it is. You've struck on the kernel of truth. There are some bosses in the finished room which are directly lifted from Ile-le-Duc's work. Oh really are they. So that's the kernel of truth and it's the sort of Chinese whispers of local legends that go around. He was massively influential actually. I mean not just in France but everywhere. Within the gothic movement and everything. The effect he had on even on modern architecture is remarkable. He was an extraordinary chap. Untrained generally too. I mean there are certain elements that I really agree with. How should you echo the environment it's in. So you're bringing nature inside which is why we've got this what looks like relatively dirty green glass. The idea behind that is to give the effect of dappled light coming through tree leaves. So everything was thought about. It is an extraordinary place this isn't it. It's amazing because this chapel was supposed to be the great centre of this house. The Lee family were devout Roman Catholics and they wanted to build a great Roman Catholic centre. And it's also considering you know this when it was actually built it looks as though it should be much older. I mean I don't know enough about these things but it's extraordinary isn't it. Well of course it's a wonderful example of the gothic revival style particularly here the decorated gothic of the 14th century. That beautiful rose window with those sort of trefoil traceries and the vaulted ceiling with those wonderful floral bosses. You know just reminiscent of the high medieval period when obviously Catholicism was the only and true religion in medieval Europe. So it's very reminiscent of their faith. Yeah I mean it's an extraordinary thought isn't it. The dedication of this family to reproducing all of that and sad that it didn't get completed. But that's a joy for all of us because seeing this place in the state that it is at the moment. Even though we've got this one the elephant in the room is these two massive scaffold towers. Yes which are not holding the place up but they're supporting things that are stopping the water coming in. Is that the point? Yes a bit of combination of the two. So there's the overroof outside which is stopping further water ingression and these are supporting two damaged buttresses. So when the house was abandoned there was no one clearing out the gutters so water came in and saturated the stone. So the olythic limestone that is what the house is built out of becomes very soft when it's damp to the point when it's underground you can cut it with a wood saw. So the pressure coming down from this wonderful roof above caused massive fracturing in these two buttresses. So there was remedial work done very very quickly but we're looking in the region of six million. It's somewhere in that ballpark. And this is an ambition of yours? This is an ambition. So I'm not going to be doing it all myself hopefully but that is an ambition. That's a very exciting ambition. You have to have targets but that's one target isn't it? It is. I'll be very pleased to be able to step away and go I have left this place much better than I found it. Yeah which I'm sure you've already done so that's fantastic. I love the way you can see these supporting things are interesting because it was you know they're not in this case I presume these are new. These were I think they were done when Stroud District Council actually bought the building. So Stroud Council owned the building then Woodchester Mansion Trust have been here since 1988 and we've been running on a peppercorn rent so we basically have the the bills and we run it with local volunteers. When we come past here I mentioned the still the marks on the stone. So you've got it here. There's the the outline of what it was going to be. It is extraordinary you have to get your mind into a different kind of gear to go around this place because it's it's not you know you have been through a lot of ruins but that's not what it is. It's almost detective work in a way. Wow what a wonderful wonderful passage that is. It's very very striking. It's very cathedral-esque so this is the main corridor for the building. Yeah okay. Again with that fantastic vaulted ceiling very very high but again there's educational options here so you can see a finished vaulted ceiling and as we move down the one just in front of the grand staircase the mortar joints are all scraped out ready for the first plaster coat and then further down you've got it where it's just been finished so you can really see the whole process going together. If we head through this way we'll go into the drawing room and that's going to be the the one finished room. Right. And this was done for a visit of Archcardinal Vaughan. He was he became Pope didn't he eventually? Archcardinal Vaughan yes. Yes and he was coming to visit so they finished you you said a little bit about this. They finished this one room in a bit of a rush and I assume the corridor there so the the image I have in my mind of this how take all taking place is right we'll finish this one bit and we'll do that we'll put the glass in the chapel so that bit looks all nice we'll get him down we'll see if we can either get money to finish it or give it to them and don't show him what's through the other doors so big curtains up and stuff like that but they've made a few errors in here so as you were saying just earlier the vault here is very very shallow and done relatively cheaply so the level of carving isn't to the standard of that in the chapel. Right. They've also used cement which is awful for this but at the time it was the new wonder material it's quicker it's cheaper and goes off faster than lime so at the time there wasn't the knowledge of going oh god this is terrible. So this is rather wonderful now that that amazing three bay window sticks out from the house does it? It does yes so that's more or less in line with the Georgian building the Spring Park that predates this house so the foundations of Woodchester Mansion is on the foundations of Spring Park but the bay window itself is one of the few areas that isn't. If we head through to here you can see what the rest of the house is like. Right this is where the floors are missing. Yes this is extraordinary. Max has walked through this doorway a thousand times but just a few days later I walked through it with Daniel and his reaction was a lot like mine. Wow isn't that incredible? It is. It goes way up there now. To be able to see the different layers without the floors in between the floating fireplaces yeah the half-completed vault. Yeah. You see that they put things to protect these lovely vaults here but those little roofs they've got up there to stop things falling on them. It didn't matter about the people working beneath that wasn't their concern their concern was ensuring the protection of these pieces. I mean stone's expensive and a worker in those days was replaceable. Diamond doesn't. It is an extraordinary feeling for somebody like me who really doesn't have the architectural knowledge this is an astonishment. I don't think I've ever seen these floating fireplaces anywhere else. I mean it's very reminiscent of when you go into like a medieval castle and you'll see the remains of where the floors would have been and then the you know the floating fireplaces in that context. That's a very good point. So this is the reverse. This is the reverse exactly. It's the floor not being put in rather than the floor falling out. To be able to see all the you know the relieving arches of the brickwork there to push the weight away from the fine stone doorways and the putt log holes where the scaffold would be going it's just yeah it's a it's like seeing a building site as it's happening but it's stopped. And then just end and never touched again. So a very useful place to learn the basics of how these things were done. I mean do you get the sense of what this room would have been because of the beginnings of the vaultings of the ceiling and this extraordinary height of these windows? How wonderful. And then it just goes up forever into the sky. That's one of the old scaffolding poles yes sticking out of the wall. There's also Victorian health and safety. The little roof that you see in the corner there. That's in case someone drops a chisel from the top floor. You don't want to hurt the stone. You don't want to hurt the stone but you can always get another workman. So the workman below gets speared by the chisel but the stone is okay. Absolutely. You've got to get your priorities straight. On the wall going by this fireplace here and one over here as well. That's for the bell pull. So the sort of lead pipe would hold the wire for that which would go. You can trace all the fireplaces and chimneys in the building because they've used the brick to line the walls as it's more heat resistant. So you can see them coming off from above the fireplace off to the side then up joining the chimneys up above. And rather lovely chimneys too if my memory serves me. Yes. Sort of they're octagonal. We've got two different architects that worked on the building. Right. So the north range servants quarters was a chap called Charles Hanson. Right. Charles Hanson was a very good architect. His brother invented the Hanson cab. Oh right. But he's got this more octagonal diamond shape chimney whereas as we come over to the Bucknell side we've got more cylindrical ones which are a bit taller but you can really see with the swap over point because Bucknell goes much taller and much more grander. But he was in his 20s when he was doing this and made a few schoolboy errors. But it's a it's a fantastic area. But this would have been the library. Right. Okay. So that and so they'd have been preparing to build in library shelves. Exactly. So what we saw in the room next door those Springer stones like behind me here would have come down with a column. Yep. These terminate and would have had some form of carving on that but below that would have all been the bookcases. Yes I see. Lining around. That's why they didn't come down to the bottom. I see. Gosh that wouldn't wouldn't that have been wonderful. It would have been stunning. We have had filming done here for a few different things and I don't think he even made it into the film but they had done this room up as a library. So it was a very bizarre experience to walk in and it's a finished room sort of to here and then you look up and you've still got this. Yeah. Unfinished nature. Wonderful for film sets. It must be it must be perfect. It's it's very very good. So we've had things like The Crown, His Dark Materials, a variety of different things over the year. We had Dracula at one point. So you'll see various gothic doors dotted around the building which look convincing but they are actually a film prop that they forgot to take away. So we'll be going through into the dining room and this one's got some of the really interesting things that were left behind. Right. So as we look up we've got this original arch former. That's what I was going to ask when that was original. That is absolutely fascinating. So that's what they put in to support the arch where they're building it. Yes. So starting from the outside coming towards the centre then you have your keystone put in and then all that weight from up above is sent down the sides there. Original set square in the corner over there which is absolutely massive. If you were using that to see if your walls were straight by the time you've done that you'd be like oh maybe I'll pretend it was straight. It's an incredible set square. Original scaffolding and lots more of the other bits of roof so this one has probably the most of the original wood still still in place. Yes I see. There are various bits in the house where it's all been worked into the stone. Yeah. That's all been thought about so you've got a space for your shutters. Yeah. Space for your curtains to go into and if you look up there are the metal prongs for lack of a better word where the rail would have gone on to. The kitchen of this place where we're headed now one of only a couple of rooms to have been used extremely briefly by the family is I think I ought to tell you one of the most haunted rooms in this extremely haunted house. We'll be back here shortly with a ghostly version of this film. You just wait. For a house supposedly never occupied it has more ghosts than anywhere I've found. So this is the old kitchen. Wonderful kitchen. Great range. So this room the floor here is from the original Georgian mansion. Right. So if you overlay the two floor plans together you effectively have the kitchen and scullery in almost identically the same place. So the range itself is relatively small for a house this size but that was put in by one of the grandchildren called Vincent Lee. He lived for a brief period in the north range so he converged a few rooms that were which were suitable for him. But it's a very lovely space but it is fab. So when we do the bat walks as well for the buildings we have two maternity roosts for endangered bats. So you can be inside the building so say the kitchen or the back corridor there you can have about 20 bats whizzing around your head. So this is a nice little spiral not quite spiral. It would have been the house stairs so on the plans that you can see marked on here they had made it so that these sections if it was to be done this could be removed so you could have your furniture winched up and down. We have the bathroom here. Ah this is the famous bath which Daniel could not resist sitting in. It's not that comfortable this stone bath but it is pretty remarkable and particularly interesting are these two gargoyles that bring the hot and cold water into the bath but they are sort of voice command but there's no AI is it Robin? No it certainly isn't but it is an extraordinary concept this because behind this these things there's a little hole here was a servant who when you were feeling a little bit cold because you just haven't had a bit in a long you shout for some more hot water and they reach in from behind there and turn on the taps permanently on call. That's extraordinary. So you've had your nice hot bath then you come through and have a shower. So and just up here again with gargoyle heads. Great sort of lion's head. Are they lion's heads? I would assume so whether it's lions or leopards or it's some big cat-like creature. The small one would have had a poor chain. Oh right. And the large one would have dumped the cold water. So you're sort of sister like that. I believe so. I'm very clever this is wonderful it's like a sort of wet room. It is it's a very early Victorian wet room so when this was being built they were trying to embrace new technology as well because it wasn't too long before electricity started coming into houses really early stuff so it's a a really interesting snapshot between where you're building to look like a medieval gothic cathedral and you're trying to keep this or bring in the new technology without spoiling the apparent appearance. Absolutely. If we go through to the bat observatory in here the tv screens that you've got are live feeds to the bat roosts. Oh right. So that's a live feed for the greater horseshoes and a live feed for the lesser horseshoes. Where do they come from? Are they migratory? They have a small sort of it's not so much a migration they'll have different roosts so when these guys leave here for example they'll go to say Forest of Dean into a stone mine or something like that so it's relatively short distance. They just have different places to be at different times of the year. Yeah. This is where they come and have their kids. Yes so you can come here and watch them with their their tiny tiny babies but they do some lovely activity something called shaking off so if you imagine you've got a toddler that's about a third of your size they won't let go you literally have to shake them off and you hang them up and then they go out to feed but when you come back when you come in and watch them you can see a collection of related babies put together so they form them into creches. So it's a sort of family. It is. The Bats clearly decided to abandon this place for at least part of the year. I'm still bewildered that a whole team of builders could down tools and leave the place without ever looking back. Still I mean even now I'm trying to get into fix in my mind what set of circumstances arise to leave a place like this simply deserted I mean it's an extraordinary thought it really is and to literally to down tools. Because that's your livelihood. And it's everybody's. It's like a workman just abandoning his van full of tools. It is. He just wouldn't do it that's his livelihood. From the modern bat laboratory we move to the top corridor and get the very twizzly view down into the rooms below. Here you get an even clearer idea of the massive scale of this place. The drop is endless. So if you've got a head for heights you can look down there so we are above those rooms which were just all the way down. This is the roof of the yes so that's the roof of the first floor corridor. So if we head down this way and we go down to the third door there's a lovely note from one of the crafts people that signed their name on the plaster roof. This lowest beam here you've got 1866 and 80 that's for a gentleman called Albert Tilly. And the family is still around they've moved to Chicago. We were only lucky enough to find it because their his descendants came in and said oh our great however many great grandfathers it was worked on the building and there should be a name written. Because they had a record of the fact that he put his name there. Yeah so it was something like a diary or something like that so yeah. He said if you look in that corner you'll find his name scratched. Yes. Just the most amazing story. Now we go down a spiral stairway which was completed before the hiatus showing us what all the stairs would have been like if ever they had been completed. And Max will tell us of one of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic. The work they were able to do when the public were not around. An example of some of the work we've done is here. So this is 70% original glass this was repaired so Covid was actually really good for us. Right. It opened up more grants and everything like that so we managed to come out of Covid having done a million pounds worth of work because we didn't have to worry about being open to the public. We had enabling grants and everything sort of combined together to allow us to do stuff. So you leapt at the opportunity fast enough and made full use of that two-year period of where we can do everything. So it was good in a way despite all the other issues that it brought for so many people. No no these things always have some upside. Yes. And this was one of upsides. Of course this place is more than just a kind of unusual theme park around which we can all wander in amazement. It's used for some extremely important work in ensuring expertise and know-how continues. Lots of young potential stonemasons, architects, restorers and maintenance experts train here in what is a natural demonstration diagram. So we work closely with Bath College and several other educational facilities to come and do live hands-on training so there's a door at the back of the house that they just finished last winter which is going to then be put into use and things like that. So there's a fantastically encouraging sort of synergy about that. You're providing this extraordinary sort of exploded diagram of a house for these people to learn on and at the same time they're contributing to the maintenance of the building in some way. Yes it's a really fantastic way of having it and it's really nice to see them come and be able to do it actively. So say if they've been doing it all theoretically or it's been just on a banker in a workshop and they haven't had a chance to get the whole picture it's wonderful. The building is well known for its magnificent gargoyles. These are really just big extensions to the guttering on the roofs taking water away from the walls spurting it well away from the masonry. Making these only two practical things decorative was a speciality of a famous French architect called Eugène Violette Le Duc who designed the gargoyles for Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and who was a strong influence on the young architect who built this place. If you're here on a rainy day you can see them shooting the water out a good distance so they're doing the job they're supposed to do. Yes they are very long I've noticed I mean there's no joke those gargoyles they can you know the full half a meter. So they go back into the wall as far as they stick out if not more yeah so they're well supported but one of the gargoyles was decapitated at one point by a falling roof tile so if you're on level with it you can see where it's had a bit of neck surgery and had his head screwed back on but there's a boar a fox and two hunting dogs along the south range here. Now down into the depths of the cellars. I'm a wine merchant by trade and I've always had a fascination for cellars and these don't disappoint. To give you an idea of where we are we are below the dining room so one with that big arch former and set square. This is one of the favorite areas for ghost hunters and when we do Halloween we decorate all these rooms so people can come down and explore and get themselves settled so it's good fun. So these are ventilation things but they're not access things. I believe some of them might have been because there's some slight variations in them throughout the rooms but I think that may have just been for light. Yeah I'm not entirely sure but they were ones that we had to reglaze because there was various issues in the past with local kids coming in and sneaking in through those windows there. Well I'd have done that if I was a local kid. Oh I would have done as well I can't blame them it's the element of adventure. Coming to the end of the tour and approaching the door into the park Max shows us perhaps the most extraordinary and difficult to explain feature of the house the tool room. Oh look it's a sort of workshop look at those tools abandoned they were all abandoned um astonishing so they were dotted all around the building right so I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly where all of them were but you brought them all together planes lovely lovely and as you were saying earlier on this is somebody's livelihood. It is it's almost a full tool set and well we can't exactly leave the large axe lying around because there's small children that come and visit but yeah but there was just a thing at the end yeah but it's um it's still still fascinating there's various bits of stone like you've got a bit of a stone down pipe on there there's bits from top of a chimney dotted around so you do find a lot of those things dotted about the building all over the grounds whether they were a fail or there was a design change or something like that so it's that kind of thing. I suppose they may have worked on bits in various places I mean there would have been a lot of them wouldn't there? There would have been a lot I don't know how many off the top of my head there would have been but it would have been a decent team of people so carpenters masons fixers. I'll open the ironing room for you so you can see that area this is some was labeled on the plans as an ironing room it was labeled on plans as an ironing room but at the moment it's got displays of some of the stuff that's been carved by some of the masons that are currently on site so various different examples but most of these are bar a couple of things are maquettes or sort of training models so the big merman in the corner is a draft would be a draft model for someone so if you've got a client that says I want this massive statue made out of marble and you present him with that and you go actually can you change the position of the hand and stuff and you haven't you then haven't wasted thousands of wonderful marble but they've done various scale models as well but the sort of the leopard up there or apparently it's a leopard that's what they say on the papers and would be for the gutter water yeah so they would have gathered rainwater from the roofs brought it in here because it's softer than the local spring water to wash the clothes above where the merman is there's the beginning of an arch which would have been a drying an airing room and the door out here would have led you out to the back which would have been a drying green so all self-contained it has been a great privilege to be given this tour by max and cassandra they're two of the most relaxed and chilled people i have met in a while perhaps because well i'm really grateful to you it's been an absolutely fascinating tour when people come here just so that we get this clear in my mind the um they don't get the amazing privilege you have you could take them around but uh we have a a team of really really good volunteers that's no more will probably be more correct with the history than i am right uh and be able to give the full background of the family and show you around they won't be able to get into all the spaces that i've shown you but um they will be able to see the vast majority of the house and be able to go around on with a nice with a nice with a nice local person who's a volunteer yes yes that's that's in the best tradition of stately homes excellent excellent stuff well it's been fascinating i'm very grateful to you it's an absolute pleasure well we leave this place in a oh and by the way i can't resist telling you that i came back here after we filmed with my grandchildren we explored the whole valley picnicking in the woods where they scrambled up the steep slopes playing hide and seek we walked to the lakes in the distance and got just a hint of the lives people led here in the past there is a national trust car park conveniently placed halfway from the road to the house and since they look after the great stretch of land that drops to the bottom of the valley it's in a terrific state and absolutely worth the not inconsiderable effort to walk the slope and back this place is a truly wonderful asset in a part of the country not short of wonderful things i am an eternal fan please do visit and find out why their website in our description will tell you all about their events and opening times and all that stuff it's an absolute must finally ladies and gentlemen i am so pleased to have introduced you to daniel his instagram and youtube channel under great british architecture is a joy and you will see more of our collaborations with him in the very near future oh and um don't forget the woodchester ghosts coming soon goodbye i do hope you've enjoyed our trip around this incredible place of woodchester mansion daniel has been an absolute pleasure having you along and thank you for coming and i hope we can do this again somewhere thank you very much for inviting me it's been wonderful to see the interior of woodchester mansion and i hope to do this again in future too well let's indeed try and make that happen very nice to see you thanks very much thank you