Weddings

Maunsel House, Somerset

Sir Ben Slade, the owner of this medieval manor house set in 90 acres of parkland, can give you a personal tour when you stay at his family home.

Going round Maunsel House with its owner, Sir Benjamin Slade, is rather like a fascinating history lesson, which is what you’d expect from someone who can trace his ancestors back to Charles II on his mother’s side. There are lots of colourful characters from the family’s past: the lady who was so distraught at finding a wrinkle, she locked herself away and was never seen again; the ancestor who built Nelson’s flagship, the Victory; and Sir John Slade, aka Black Jack – ‘probably the worst general in the army’ who danced with Marie-Antoinette. Their portraits, including some of Sir Ben himself – a talkative, amiable man very far from what you’d imagine a lord of the manor to be – are among those hung on almost every available wall of Maunsel’s public rooms.

It was Sir Ben’s foresight that helped save Maunsel House from financial ruin. When, in 1986, he took over from Uncle Alfred ‘the Rake’ and Aunt Freda ‘the Bleeder’ who had spent what was left of the family fortune, Maunsel was in a general state of disrepair, riddled with dry rot. Raising cash to renovate the house by charging visitors 50p a visit, Sir Ben has created a wonderful venue for an old-fashioned house party.

Instead of overstated elegance, this is a family home that’s been lived in, where the carpets might be slightly frayed around the edges, but where you’ll find plenty of ambience, with suits of armour and swords on the walls along with some excellent hospitality (Sir Ben and his partner, Kirsten, can be as present or as absent as you want). There are some quirky additions too; the house has one of the oldest loos in Somerset, and there’s a room above Sir Ben’s flat that can only be reached via a ceiling panel.

The house dates back much further than the Slade family, who moved in relatively recently in 1771; it’s mentioned in the Domesday book and was visited by Chaucer. Spend an evening here, and you can move through the ages, the various rooms added at different times during Maunsel’s history. Start in the bar, with flagstones, timber roof and wood settles, where a Saxon thane named Brictwold was lord of the manor before being removed by a Norman baron.

Then pass through the Norman entrance hall with its Tudor ceiling to the Victorian side of the house with its elegant pale green dining room, its long wooden table surrounded by leather chairs and life-size carvings of Africans on either side of the fire. After dinner, sink into one of the sofas in front of the fire in the pine-panelled library or dance in the ballroom, empty since Aunt Freda sold all the furniture’, but perfect for a knees up or a wedding.

Upstairs, there’s plenty of furniture, particularly in the bathrooms, which are often as big as the bedrooms and include dressing tables, sofas and even a drinks cabinet in the shape of a globe. They also hold some spectacular baths including a ‘coffin bath’ in wood, where the lid comes down, and one of the few remaining combined Victorian showers and baths.

The bedrooms are well furnished, most with four-posters and plenty of antiques, including beautiful examples of marquetry and an ornate 200-year-old Florentine mirror. However, one of the attic rooms does have a particularly low ceiling.

When you’re not marvelling at Maunsel’s stunning interior you can wander around the grounds that are filled with wildlife including a peacock, guinea fowl, and a herd of unusual looking White Park rare-breed cattle.

But the undisputed lord of the manor in Maunsel’s animal kingdom is a cross-bred black Labrador/Doberman called Jasper, who inherited £50,000 and was the subject of a bitter custody battle.

At Maunsel, even the dogs a little bit different.