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Best Uk Country Manor for a 2-3 Lord of the Manor experience

Best Uk Country Manor for a 2-3 Lord of the Manor experience

Old Mar 17th, 2016, 02:21 PM
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Best Uk Country Manor for a 2-3 Lord of the Manor experience

Travelling with two teen age girls, the usual route, London, York, Bath, Cotswolds in some combination of train and car rental. Will likely rent an apartment in London.

Looking for a manor stay recommendation.

Parents are design and architecture fans who read out of print architecture books on UK churches and manor homes. One parent is an agricultural economist. Would like to spend 2-3 days in a stylishly dilapidated english country manor of architectural interest that might allow for horseback riding and local touring or other country pursuits to keep the teens busy. Traditional style without being Downton Abbey formal. Maybe the kind of place that has dogs shedding on the cumfy sofas and where there is still a keen interest in horses and gardens and near where real farming still takes place. Not really looking for the full on globalized luxurious hotel, but more a window into a way of life of the Lord of the Manor that is all but gone. (we are also renting a peasant cottage elsewhere to contrast the life.....)

Any recommendations?
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Old Mar 17th, 2016, 02:25 PM
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I think most stylish manor homes will be luxury hotels...not sure you will find something that is dilapidated because there are health and safety regulations.
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Old Mar 17th, 2016, 02:42 PM
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What you're describing can be found in private homes, but those open to the public have to meet certain standards and, of course, most people wanting to stay in manor- styled homes also demand modern conveniences and a bit of luxury.
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Old Mar 17th, 2016, 03:21 PM
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When I stayed here 20 years ago it would have ticked most of your boxes but it appears to hav gone considerably up market. Still, it's in a gorgeous spot on the Welsh Borders, not too far off your intended route so will submit for consideration:

http://www.gliffaeshotel.com/rooms/
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Old Mar 17th, 2016, 03:33 PM
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Perhaps Airbnb?
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Old Mar 17th, 2016, 03:53 PM
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If you were traveling back in the 60's or 70's - there were lots of 'shabby chic' or just plain shabby country places operating on a shoestring. But now, most will either be up market, or think they are.

What you are describing more would be a private home - Barbour and wellies set.

I think you've been reading too many out-of-print books
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Old Mar 17th, 2016, 11:53 PM
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This question sounds like a pitch for a BBC sitcom.

There IS a National Trust house (Chastleton: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chastleton-house ) which is promoted on the (highly dodgy) pretence it was pretty much like the poster's quaint fantasies. It'd be closed in a nanosecond if it tried to accept overnight guests for money - but it MIGHT be worth visiting to prop up the delusion such places ever existed.

Lots of what some might call "peasant cottages" nearby too. But on the rare occasions one comes on the market, it gets snapped up for about a million quid, and their rents reflect this.

And - I speak as one brought up in an urban peasant slum in the miserabilsts' golden age - none of them have the outside toilet, single cold-water tap, solitary coal fireplace, peeling wallpaper and rising damp we all regarded as normal - never mind the one external cold water tap shared with three neighbours my current "peasants' cottage" put up with in the late 1940s. They've even got electricity, which shows how unlike real "peasants' cottages" they are.

As for "real farming"... "Real" agricultural labourers left for the nearest town more or less the day they shot Franz Ferdinand.

Your best bet is a trip to Cardiff for the Dr Who Experience. A Tardis might help: we can't

We can, though, direct you to that Interwebby thingy, where your parents can buy Simon Jenkins 1000 Best Churches and 1000 Best Houses. Or to any bookshop or newsagent in Britain, where the shelves are groaning under the tonnes of recently written and printed books about our ageing buildings. All written on the basis of real research and site investigations simply not possible 50 years ago.

There's an excellent reason much of WG Hoskins' and John Betjeman's uninformed rants about English buildings are now out of print. They were sloppy in their own time - and they've been massively overtaken by later research and by events they lived through but simply ignored.
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 01:06 AM
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Do a search for "country house hotels", many of which are converted private homes.

The title "lord of the manor" can be bought and sold these days, and usually doesn't even come with a house.
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 02:29 AM
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flanner--cold water tap? Running water? Luxury! We 'ad a stream running through our back yard to wash our clothes and perform our ablutions.
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 02:33 AM
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A stream in't backyard? Looxury.... We'd to walk six miles in bare feet to't nearest canal and came back muckier than we left.

But we was 'appy......
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 03:16 AM
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 05:09 AM
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Our favorite country Manor hotel is Plumber Manor in Dorset.

A 400 year old manor house still owned by the family that built it then. Lots of places ti visit nearby and great food.Richard the owner rides to the hounds in season so he

can probably tell you where to ride if needed.

http://www.plumbermanor.co.uk/
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 05:10 AM
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I forgot Ask for rooms in the main house
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 07:35 AM
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Avalon2: Doesn't at all fit the OP's brief . . . Plumber Manor isn't "dilapidated", it is a 'luxury' (their word, not mine) 16 room hotel -- hardly a working farm.
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 07:50 AM
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You might try HF Holidays' house in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds. We've stayed there twice, once for a week-long walking trip and once for a half-week. It's a beautiful old house that defines shabby chic in my mind. This would be a different experience than you've described, but your fellow walkers will be primarily middle class English who will give you a good impression of the UK today in a neat setting. By the way, I know that Bourton and some other Cotswold villages are twee, but the HF house and people aren't.
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 08:57 AM
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I don't think this is what they are looking for either:
http://www.farmstay.co.uk/Accommodat...as/workingfarm
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 11:03 AM
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As mentioned by others, I think there may be a choice to be made, country house hotel or farm. Neither of those, a B&B, I have stayed in a somewhat dilapidated but very interesting manor house near Shepperton Studios, in the course of a week-long walk http://www.oldmanorhouse.eu but no activities provided. It's between Windsor and Hampton Court Palace so if you can entertain yourselves it might be fun.
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Old Mar 18th, 2016, 11:21 AM
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I don't think accommodations at National Trust Properties have been mentioned as a more modest alternative. There are many, some very unusual, in all parts of the country: http://www.nationaltrustholidays.org.uk

National Trust hotels: http://www.historichousehotels.com

Sudeley Castle: http://www.sudeleycastle.co.uk/cottages/

You can even stay at Hampton Court Palace. Live the dream of being a servant:
http://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-...in-the-palace/
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