A Family Home with its own Chapel.

Lytes Cary Manor

I don’t know much about architecture but I like to look at old buildings and I love the way that 21st Century visitors blend in and bring them to life.

For me it’s all about big stone houses, dusty smells and helpful volunteers. I don’t try to give lots of facts, I prefer the photos to do the talking. Lytes Cary Manor has all that. It didn’t really feel like a manor more like a family home – a family made good not born noble.

The first of the family to live there was William le Lyte, a feudal tenant, as early as 1286. The chapel dates back to 1343.

I found the house very atmospheric with a lived in feel. And volunteers sitting in the rooms appeared to be really at ease and comfortable.

Sir Walter and Lady Flora Jenner took over the house in the early 20th Century, restoring the rooms as they were/or should’ve been in the 17th Century. I got a bit of a Bloomsbury Set vibe in the house and Gertrude Jekyll feel from the garden. But I’m no gardener.

 We didn’t reach this wonderful Dovecote as it was really sploshy and muddy but it’s definitely worth a photo. Built in the 1930s but inspired by the 18th-century dovecote at Avebury Manor in Wiltshire.