Witley Court

Witley Court bathes in the fountain of youth. When you visit Witley Court, rounding the head of the lake,

you see the house on a distant knoll,

benign and glowing in the early autumn sunshine

You might be forgiven for thinking you'd made a mistake. After all we love peaking round a well run stately pile, us brits. Ohhing and ahhing at the accoutrements of nobility: the sumptuous decor, the pictures, the furniture.

But get closer still and you see that it is as you have been told.

What was once one of the most opulent of English country houses is indeed the most spectacular ruin.

In its Victorian heyday it was owned by the Earls of Dudley whose profits from land, railways, plantations and coal yielded over £5million annually in today's money.

Princes week-ended here, when week-ending was new. The house used 30 tonnes of the Dudleys' own coal each day just to keep cosy and the Christmas tree was hung with real gems. Out in the garden

the great fountain of Perseus and Andromeda played in the sunshine of the proverbially golden Edwardian afternoon.

So how could it have all gone so wrong?

When he was once asked by a journalist how smooth running governments might be stymied, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously replied 'Events, dear boy, events.'

Well, events do not get much bigger than the First World War. And Estate Tax which began in 1916. To these, (killers for many landed estates), you could add an almost serial extravagance and a hefty dose of financial mismanagement. And then deliver the ultimate denouement: fire.

In September 1937 a fire in the basement bakery (yes of course they baked their own bread!) could not be extinguished due to a poorly maintained hydrant which would have drawn water from the said fountain.

In consequence when an enterprising news hound flew over the mansion the following morning this was what he saw:

Most of its famed opulence charred to oblivion. Villagers and servants had rescued what they could ( including what is clearly a grand piano), but what inevitably followed was the sale and dismemberment of the estate.

Asset stripped, vandalised and neglected though it may have been, Witley Court avoided all sorts of other possible fates (racing track, caravan park etc) and landed ultimately in the kindly guardianship of English Heritage.

I say kindly because once you get over the fact that it is a ruin you realize that it is an exceptionally well cared for ruin.

Sure if you look you can still find a few traces of charred wood from the blaze.

But this is not a sad place, to be mawkishly ambled around. What was is gone and what is left is a clean boned structure, almost like a desert carcase picked bare.

Walls have been stabilized and what you see is a series of sculptural spaces

a Parthenon - like grandeur of interconnecting airy voids.

There is light and darkness where you would have expected neither,

and bewitching shadows.

A few scattered informational plaques tell you for example that the ballroom looked like this:

(Note the grand piano)

But now it looks like this:

And freed of all the fussy Victorian 'tout Louis' decor your mind can almost supply a film script: Tum Tum, (the legendary philandering and fat King Edward VII) in full evening fig, puffing on a cigar, descends the steps with a beauty on either arm, to take a turn in the dusk before deciding which to bed.

Turn your back on the house and you're in a late Victorian / Edwardian garden. All is grandly simple and simply grand.

Edges and hedges are clean and well cut. There is much use of sculptural evergreens. The management team have respected the original Nesfield layout, down to exact positional replanting.

And at a distance from the house you can fully experience the close connection of the garden design with the house, its axial nature and its huge contribution to the arrogant display of power and wealth which Witley Court represented.

But one of English Heritage's key successes here was to restore the Perseus and Andromeda fountain to almost full working order.

Damaged in the fire, it was publicly reopened in 2002 by HRH the current Prince of Wales.

Fired on the hour during opening hours, it is awaited patiently by visitors

for the piece of pure theatrical showmanship it is.

And for its irrepressible gaiety!

It couldn't save the house and yet it now carries the entire place, giving it a central, beating and audible heart.

Well worth a visit - it charmed me. Witley Court is just a short drive from the M5 in Worcestershire, so really easy to access. English Heritage are friendly and attentive hosts.

Do google, especially images and flickR etc for loads more on this stunning house and garden - certainly much better pics than I could possibly supply!