Category: #50places2026

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Baddesley Clinton Hall #50places2026

I had been to Baddesley Clinton Hall before back in January 2023. I had planned to visit it again in 2023, but never did, nor did I visit last year, though I visited some other places close by.

So, after visiting Packwood House, it was an easy choice to make to head to Baddesley Clinton Hall which was just over two miles away. I drove up to the car park, parked and headed to reception. This is a lovely house surrounded by a moat.

There is a real sense of history as you walk through the house, starting with the medieval origins, walking through the Tudor rooms before seeing how the house was used in the 20th-century before being handed over to the National Trust. 

Baddesley Clinton Hall

Moated manor house with late medieval, Tudor and 20th-century histories. Home to the Ferrers family for 500 years.

Current saving £259.30
One adult £18
Parking n/a
Total saving £18
Cumulative saving £373.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £277.30

Unlike my visit in January 2023, this time I did take the opportunity to walk around the lake and the gardens.

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Packwood House #50places2026

I had Packwood House on my list of National Trust properties to visit for a while now.

I drove off to Packwood House, up in Warwickshire. Though the app didn’t say the property had EV chargers, the website did. I arrived with 12% charge left and there were EV chargers, and I plugged in the Funky Cat.

I headed to reception, got my membership card scanned, and got a timed ticket for the house. I headed to the house.

This was a wonderful house, I really enjoyed exploring all the different rooms. Though not authentically Tudor, the early 20th century restoration, which is being conserved, is delightful. The upper floors are lovely. I really enjoyed the long gallery and the great hall at the end was unexpected.

Packwood House

The culmination of a lifetime of dreams: salvaged objects and exotic pieces come together in a Jacobean meets Edwardian style. Beautiful, homely, warm and welcoming. The house was originally built in the 16th century, yet its interiors were extensively restored between the First and Second World Wars by Graham Baron Ash to create a fascinating 20th-century evocation of domestic Tudor architecture. Packwood House contains a fine collection of 16th-century textiles and furniture, and the gardens have renowned herbaceous borders and a famous collection of yews.

Current saving £241.30
One adult £18
Parking n/a
Total saving £18
Cumulative saving £355.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £259.30

After exploring the house, I headed back to the café and had the ploughman’s lunch, which was significantly better than the one I had at Stourhead. I got bread this time.

After eating my lunch and drinking my green tea, I headed back to the house, well the gardens. I enjoyed walking around the collection of Yews, and the spiral terrace at the end of the garden was an intriguing surprise.

I had a lovely time at the house and would go again in the future.

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Denbies Wine Estate #50places2026

You could say at one level that putting a place like Denbies, essentially a wine shop in my list of #50places2026 might be seen as cheating, it’s just a shop isn’t it?

However there is a lot more to the place then a shop to buy some English wine. On the day we went, there was a Peugeot car rally, alongside an antiques fair.

Across the estate are the wine shop, restaurants, a farm shop, a beer shop, coffee roastery, to name some.

However what you can also do is walk around the vineyards in the estate. On the day we went it was hot and sunny and I did feel like I was walking around a vineyard in France or Germany.

I was pleased to have reached my fifty places in 2025 for my #50places2025 series of blog posts. This year I am planning to do something similar with a new hashtag, #50places2026 and it will be the same rules. Each time I visit a place I will post a blog post and some photographs. I can’t repeat places, and in an extra twist I can’t use the fifty places I visited in 2025 in the list as well (though I anticipate visiting some of those places again).

So far I have visited 34 places.

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Royal Albert Hall#50places2026

This was my first visit to see a performance at The Royal Albert Hall. We went to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Film Music Gala. It started off with the march from Raiders of the Lost Ark and finished off with Axel F from Beverley Hills Cop. Magnificent performance, which I really enjoyed.

I had been to see the hall in October 2022, but was just passing by and took a few photographs of the exterior.

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Wimbledon#50places2026

I have been to Wimbledon before, well Wimbledon Village, when I was staying at a hotel there for work back in August 2022. I remember when my Sixth Form College was having a trip to Wimbledon to see the tennis (back in the late 1980s), I wanted to go, but it was deemed to be not educational and relevant to my A Levels…. so I never went. I was staying in Wimbledon with my son who has just moved there. We spent time waking through the centre and up to the village and onto the common. I didn’t see any wombles though. I did see lots of horses riding through the village though. We had some nice meals and coffee too.  

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Priest’s House, Muchelney #50places2026

Priest's House, Muchelney

There are some properties where you can spend the whole day exploring the house, the gardens and the grounds. However the National Trust is not just about big houses and mansions, they also have large areas of countryside and coastal areas. One aspect of their portfolio are smaller houses of interest. So, I had a plan I would three such properties in one day. The first of which was Coleridge Cottage, the second was the Treasurer’s House in Martock, the third and final house was the Priest’s House in Muchelney.

It’s only a short drive from Martock to Muchelney, I realised that I was double backing on myself, but it was in the right direction going home. 

As with the Treasurer’s House, this National Trust property is on a tenancy, which means that for someone, it is their home. They open the house to National Trust for two afternoons a week over the summer.

Priest’s House

Late medieval hall-house in a picturesque village. This medieval hall-house was built in 1308 for the parish priest of the church opposite, and has been little altered since the early 17th century. Interesting features include the Gothic doorway, magnificent double-height tracery windows and a massive 15th-century stone fireplace.

Current saving £236.30
One adult £5
Parking n/a
Total saving £5
Cumulative saving £337.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £241.30

The owner does short tours of the house, so I rang the doorbell and waited for a short while before being let in for the tour.

This is a lovely thatched cottage, with some lovely medieval features. The massive 15th-century stone fireplace was huge and made from one piece of stone. Makes you wonder how they managed to not only get that into the property, but also how they got it to the village as well.

The tour is quite short, just three rooms, but the owner gave a really lovely guide to the house, its history and many of the features. 

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Treasurer’s House, Martock #50places2026

There are some properties where you can spend the whole day exploring the house, the gardens and the grounds. However the National Trust is not just about big houses and mansions, they also have large areas of countryside and coastal areas. One aspect of their portfolio are smaller houses of interest. So, I had a plan I would three such properties in one day. The first of which was Coleridge Cottage, the second was the Treasurer’s House in Martock.

It’s a thirty mile drive from Nether Stowey to Martock and Waze took me to the back of the church rather than the property. Not sure why, but it did mean I didn’t need to contend with parking on the busy B3165. I walked through the churchyard towards the Treasurer’s House. This National Trust house is on a tenancy, which means that for someone, it is their home. They open the house to National Trust for two afternoons a week over the summer.

Treasurer’s House

Medieval house with Great Hall, completed 1293 – with kitchen added in the 15th century. Solar Block contains an unusual wall-painting.

Current saving £231.30
One adult £5
Parking n/a
Total saving £5
Cumulative saving £332.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £236.30

This is a lovely old building, one of the oldest buildings in Somerset (and the oldest building in Martock). The great hall is very impressive and you can also see the old Tudor kitchens as well. In the house itself there is the solar block which has an original medieval painting upon it which considering that this has been a private home, that it is still there.

A lovely property and a warm welcome from the tenants who provided an in-depth tour of the property with lots of insights.

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Coleridge Cottage #50places2026

There are some properties where you can spend the whole day exploring the house, the gardens and the grounds. Dyrham Park and Tyntesfield come to mind. However the National Trust is not just about big houses and mansions, they also have large areas of countryside and coastal areas. One aspect of their portfolio are smaller houses of interest. So, I had a plan I would three such properties in one day. The first of which was Coleridge Cottage.

I had been meaning to visit this property for a while, I always saw the signs for this when visiting Dunster Castle and Minehead, but never had the time, or it was closed as I came back from Dunster.

So, I planned this visit, the house opened at 11am and the others at 2pm, so it made sense to do this one first. I drove to Nether Stowey, which is on the way from Bridgwater to Minehead. I realised as I drove into the village I had been there before, when one of my children was doing a hike and needed picking up.

Expecting parking to be an issue I parked at one end of the village and walked the five minute walk to the cottage. 

Inside there was a roaring log fire, which was a little surprising as it was nearly thirty degrees outside.

Coleridge Cottage

This atmospheric cottage was home to Coleridge and his family from 1797. It was during his time here in Somerset that Coleridge wrote his finest works, including ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, ‘Kubla Khan’, ‘Frost at Midnight’, ‘Christabel’ and ‘This Lime Tree Bower my Prison’. Working with William Wordsworth on their collection of poetry Lyrical Ballads, it was here in the wild west Somerset landscape that the literary movement of Romanticism was born. Coleridge Cottage has a rich and fascinating history, from a humble Georgian home, to its transformation into ‘Moore’s Coleridge Cottage Inn’ during the Victorian era. Following a major redevelopment project in 2011, you can now explore the wildflower garden, and rooms of the cottage never previously open to the public, which have been recreated as though Coleridge and his young family had just stepped out of the door…

Current saving £221.80
One adult £9.50
Parking n/a
Total saving £9.50
Cumulative saving £327.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £231.30

I spent time exploring the rooms and finding out a lot more about Coleridge and the history of the house. After that I headed out into the small garden.

I did sit for a while, but it was very hot in the sun, so I headed into the tea room for a scone and a drink.

You don’t need long to visit this house, but all the information on Coleridge and the romantic poets was really interesting. The garden was lovely as well. I walked back to my car ready to drive to the next house on the list.

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King Alfred’s Tower #50places2026

When I visited Stourhead back in February I saw that King Alfred’s Tower was close by, but was also closed. It is only open at weekends from April to October. I had always planned to revisit Stourhead, so it was a simple decision to also go and see King Alfred’s Tower as well.

I arrived just after 11am, the car park was very busy, but I think that’s more as people use the car park for walking in the woods.

The tower is a short walk from the car park. It is just a tower, one of the corners continuing the spiral staircase. There are 205 steps to get to the top of the 180ft high tower. There are no floors or rooms in the tower apart from the ground floor entrance.

The views from the tower are fantastic.

Walked slowly down the 205 steps. Made me slightly dizzy.

King Alfred’s Tower

This triangular tower, two miles north-west of Stourhead garden, was designed by Henry Flitcroft for Stourhead’s second owner, Sir Henry Hoare II. The Tower is named after King Alfred who raised his standard here in 878. The tower commemorates the accession of George III in 1760 and the end of the Seven Years’ War.

Current saving £187.30
One adult £7.00
Parking Free
Total saving £7.00
Cumulative saving £290.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £194.30

I would probably go again, but in the autumn when the leaves on the surrounding trees are red, orange and yellow.

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West Somerset Railway #50places2026

Over the years I have visited and travelled on the West Somerset Railway many times. When we stayed at Butlins we would often walk down to Minehead Station and look at the stream trains. In September 2023, myself and my son headed to Bishops Lydeard and caught the train to Minehead. I did visit Minehead again in October 2025, but by then I had already reached my target of fifty places that year.

In May of 2026 the West Somerset Railway was running a steam gala, this time myself and my son went along to see what was going on. This time we didn’t travel on the trains themselves, but went to various stations across the line and then headed to Minehead for some fish and chips.

I was pleased to have reached my fifty places in 2025 for my #50places2025 series of blog posts. This year I am planning to do something similar with a new hashtag, #50places2026 and it will be the same rules. Each time I visit a place I will post a blog post and some photographs. I can’t repeat places, and in an extra twist I can’t use the fifty places I visited in 2025 in the list as well (though I anticipate visiting some of those places again).