Back to Tyntesfield

For Christmas I got a National Trust membership. It’s being a few years since I was last a member, but now looking forward to visiting new places and going back to places we have been to before.

Back in 2016 I did start to keep a note of how much we saved with the membership, but looking back over the blog, I never kept up to date with that, but with this membership I am intending to blog about the visits we do this year and the savings we made.

Following our visit to Knightshayes Court last week, this time we visited Tyntesfield. We have been there before a few times, but this was our first return visit for a fair few years.

Tyntesfield

An ornate Victorian Gothic Revival house with extensive garden and parkland, just a stone’s throw from Bristol

Current saving -£91.30

Family Ticket £38.50

Parking £3.00

Total saving £41.50

Cumulative saving £84.00

Membership cost £133.80

Net cumulative saving -£49.80

Obviously we will need to visit some more places to make the membership cost effective and increase that cumulative saving. Continue reading “Back to Tyntesfield”

Knightshayes Court

For Christmas I got a National Trust membership. It’s being a few years since I was last a member, but now looking forward to visiting new places and going back to places we have been to before.

Back in 2016 I did start to keep a note of how much we saved with the membership, but looking back over the blog, I never kept up to date with that.

As it was a nice dry day we decided to visit a property. I did consider Tyntesfield, but using the National Trust app I found a property we hadn’t visited before, and it was less than an hour away, down the M5 to Tiverton.

Knightshayes Court

A great post-war garden,19th-century parkland and grand Gothic Revival architecture by Victorian visionary William Burges.

Family Ticket £38.50
Parking £4.00

Total saving £42.50

Cumulative saving £42.50

Membership cost £133.80

Net umulative saving -£91.30

Obviously we will need to visit some more places to make the membership cost effective and increase that cumulative saving.

Here are some photographs from the visit. Continue reading “Knightshayes Court”

The other side of the Gorge

At the weekend we went for a walk around Leigh Woods. I went to Leigh Woods once, about twenty years ago, but have not been there since then. This I find quite surprising, as I do live in the area, and go regularly to Ashton Court, the Downs, which are all roughly in the same area.

Leigh Woods is quite small, a 2-square-kilometre (0.77 sq mi) area of woodland on the south-west side of the Avon Gorge, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. 

We parked the car and looked at the map and thought about which route to take. We walked through the woods and down to the Avon Gorge.

There were a couple of streams which feed into the River Avon.

With some modifications to stop flooding of the paths I assume.

We went under the viaduct on the Bristol Portishead railway line.

As it was Saturday and only carries freight now and then, we didn’t see any trains.

We then walked along the Avon Trail in the Gorge. It was really nice to see the Gorge from the other side of the river.  

Generally I either see the Gorge from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, on the Portway or from the Downs.

We walked along the River Avon Trail and then as we reached the Clifton Suspension Bridge we took a right back into Leigh Woods.

We passed some grazing cows which looked out of place on what was quite a steep rocky footpath. Once back at the top we walked back to the car. It was a little further than we planned but was a lovely walk.

Making the most of my membership

For my birthday I received a membership of the National Trust and we have been visiting a fair few places. The membership gives us free entry (and free parking) to hundreds of places across England and Wales as well as entry to properties in sister organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland.

I have decided to keep track of where we have been and what it would have cost us if we had actually paid to get in.

It’s not a true reflection, as if we had to pay the full entry price, we would probably have spent the entire day there. When we went to Dunster Castle we only spent a couple of hours, and there was so much we didn’t see, we are planning to go again.

King John’s Hunting Lodge
Two adults £5.00
Children go free

Stourhead

Stourhead

Parking £3.00
Family Ticket £39.20

Dunster Castle

Dunster Castle

Parking £2.50
Family Ticket £28.40

Sand Point

Sand Point

Free (no saving)

Tyntesfield

Tynetesfield House

Parking £3.00
Family Ticket £38.65

Brean Down

Brean Down

Parking £3.50

Overall we would have spent £123.25 on tickets and parking, which now exceeds the £111 cost of a family membership. So still nearly nine months left to go. Wonder how much we will save?

An afternoon at Tyntesfield

For my birthday I received a membership of the National Trust and we have been visiting a fair few places. The membership gives us free entry (and free parking) to hundreds of places across England and Wales as well as entry to properties in sister organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland.

Tynetesfield House

Tyntesfield is quite local to me and I have been meaning to visit for sometime since the National Trust were given the house and gardens.

Tyntesfield is a Victorian Gothic Revival house and estate close to Wraxall in North Somerset. The house is a Grade I listed building. The background to the house started off when in the 1830s a Georgian mansion was built at that location, this was bought by William Gibbs, whose huge fortune came from importing and selling guano to be used as fertilizer.

Tynetesfield House

The house was significantly expanded, extended and remodelled in the 1860s. The dining room was made bigger, and the upper bedrooms were almost doubled in size and given bays. You can see this quite easily when looking around. A chapel was added in the 1870s and though a crypt was planned, it was never consecrated so it was used as storage.

Tynetesfield Chapel

The Gibbs family owned the house until the death of Richard Gibbs in 2001. Tyntesfield was purchased by the National Trust in 2002, after a fundraising campaign to prevent it being sold to private interests and ensure it would be open to the public.

It certainly is a place you could spend all day, but one of the nice things about National Trust membership is you can pop in for a shorter amount of time and not feel you need to get the full value of the entry fee by spending all day there.

The gardens are beautiful and you can spend a lot of time walking through the grounds and gardens.

Tynetesfield Gardens

The house is really interesting and you can see the way in which the house was remodelled and extended over the years. It certainly is interesting to see how the other half lived back then.

I really liked the library, which was a huge space, probably could fit most people’s houses in there! Sad that though full of books, some had never been opened or read, true some were reference books and you might not have needed to read all of it, but often these libraries were purchased more for show than a thirst for reading.

Tynetesfield Library

We had a nice cup of tea and scone in the cow barn to finish the day off.