Knightshayes

The fortune behind Knighthayes, a 19th century curiosity, came from one John Heathcoate, who in the early 1800s invented the first lace-making machine. A Luddite mob destroyed his Midlands factory--interestingly, Paul Krugman just wrote a NYT column called "Sympathy for the Luddites"--so he moved production to Tiverton, in Devon, and grew to become the world's largest lace manufacturer. (Are you with me, Tawana?) And a man of some means. He was an inventor and businessman, however, and lived in the village with his family, in relative modesty. The grandson, John Heathcoate-Amory, was not content to be a business magnate. So, in order to flaunt his great wealth and status, he purchased the Knightshayes property and had built on it a neo-Gothic great house and adjoining gardens and grounds. For interiors, his opium-eating architects produced some stunning arts and crafts things, the sort one sees at the V&A, but these were too adventurous for Sir Grandson, and he later covered them up with more typical Victorian colors and designs. As it renovates the house, the Trust is restoring the original bold decors, which are decidedly more interesting than what's presently there. The outside is definitely domestic/neo-Gothic, with Gothic arches, tracery, even a few gargoyles. And much stained glass. Alas, this is a "no fotos!" property, inside, so I have little to show. But the gardens are fairly spectacular. We spent several hours walking all of them.

Knightshayes, full frontal

Gargoyle

In the lady's bedroom; we had expected to see lots of lace
at Knightshayes, but, alas, just about all of it was on the
wedding dress in the corner

Another of the restored bedrooms

Gorgeous embroidery of the county and its various properties

View from the house down to the valley and the original
factory buildings, no longer owned by the family, but still
in the textile business

Grounds view

In the terraced formal gardens

My camera loves poppies

Still in the formal gardens, a topiary "chase"

And a lily pond

And it also loves water lilies

And dragon flies on water lily pads

All in a row 

The meadows are covered in wildflowers, daisies, forget-me-nots,
buttercups; but no dandelions! How do they do this? 

The rhodos are still doing quite well here

And the camellias

The grounds and gardens are covered by scores of huge
old trees like this one; oaks, mainly, but all manner of others
too