Wollaton Hall and Park, Nottingham

Wollaton Hall is a spectacular Elizabethan country house, standing on a natural hill three miles west of Nottingham City Centre. Wollaton Hall is set in five hundred acres of spectacular gardens and deer parkland. The house is now the home to the city's Natural History Museum and Wollaton's Courtyard Stables are home to the city's Industrial Museum. The surrounding parkland has a herd of deer, and is regularly used for large-scale outdoor events such as rock concerts, sporting events and festivals.

Wollaton Hall was built between 1580 and 1588 for Sir Francis Willoughby and is believed to be designed by the Elizabethan architect, Robert Smythson, who had by then completed Longleat, and was to go on to design Hardwick Hall. The style is an advanced Elizabethan with early Jacobean elements. The building is of Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, and is said to have been paid for with coal from the Wollaton pits owned by Willoughby; the labourers were also paid this way. The building consists of a central block dominated by a hall three storeys high, with a stone screen at one end and galleries at either end, with the "Prospect Room" above that. From this there are extensive views of the park and surrounding country. There are towers at each corner, projecting out from this top floor. At each corner of the house is a square pavilion of three storeys, with decorative features rising above the roof line. Much of the basement storey is cut from the rock the house sits on.

The house was unused for about four decades before 1687, following a fire in 1642. In 1702 the Hall was updated. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos recorded that the master masons, and some of the statuary, were brought from Italy including the decorative but ludicrous gondola mooring rings carved in stone on the exterior walls. In 1801 – 1830, the fire damages the original interior of the house and was remodelled by Jeffry Wyattville. Wyattville was a prominent garden and architectural designer who worked on Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. In 1881, the house was still owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton, but by then it was "too near the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town...now only removed from the borough by a narrow slip of country".

The hall was bought by Nottingham Council, and opened as a museum in 1925. On display are some of the best items from the three quarters of a million specimens that make up its zoology, geology, and botany collections.

Natural Connections Gallery
One of the central themes in the gallery is extinction, and a number of extinct and near-extinct species are on display. These include a passenger pigeon and a flightless parrot from New Zealand – the kakapo. Recent additions to the gallery include the extraordinary duck-billed platypus, a giant anteater and a rare manned sloth. Other popular exhibits include an orangutan skeleton, a hippo skull and a Humboldt penguin, together with many other mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and fossils.

Bird Gallery
Recreated in the style of a 1930s natural history museum display, this gallery contains taxidermied Victorian birds and game heads, alongside more contemporary specimens. Many of the birds were collected in Ethiopia and Sudan by the 19th century Nottinghamshire explorer Mansfield Parkyns. These include one of the first two specimens of the shoebill, or whale-billed stork, brought back to Europe in 1850. Other exhibits include a pelican, a bird-of-paradise, and a red kite.

Insect Gallery
Spectacular butterflies, moths, beetles and bugs from around the world are on display here. Focusing on the biology and life-cycle of insects, this gallery also includes a section on social insects including a Caribbean cloud forest diorama showing some of the birds and mammals that depend upon termite colonies for food and nest sites. Live insects are also featured – these include stick insects from Borneo and Papua New Guinea, and a colony of Madagascan hissing cockroaches.

Mineral Gallery
This gallery showcases some of the 5,000 specimens that make up the rock and mineral collection. It includes some the original Nottingham Naturalists’ Society collection and fine displays of classic minerals from the North of England (early 20th century) and Cornwall and Devon (19th century). You can also get up close to some giant ammonites – fossilized coiled shells of ancient squid-like sea creatures.

Africa Gallery
The Nottingham Natural History Museum’s famous gorilla and giraffe specimens can be seen here, together with a splendid cheetah – the fastest land mammal. The gallery also features a walk-through waterhole scene complete with zebras, leopards, hyenas, antelopes, warthogs, ostriches, a porcupine and even a fruit bat. An interactive panel enables visitors to hear the sounds made by some of the better-known African animals.

The Wallaton Park is home to a herd of red deer and fallow deer.

The immaculately kept formal gardens provide the perfect spot to sit and relax.

Migrating wildfowl grace the lake in the winter. There is a good diversity of fungi present, especially in the winter months, mainly found near the wooded areas and the lake.

It’s a great park for families and has a wonderful play area, you can just wander around and enjoy any time of the year. The park has Courtyard cafes which are dog friendly as well. Many weddings and exhibitions are hosted here.

In 2011, Wallaton Hall was used as Wayne Manor for the filming of The Dark Knight Rises.The Hall is five miles north of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, through which Gotham City indirectly got its name.Annual visitors to an Elizabethan mansion have increased by more than 100,000 since the Batman movie was filmed there.

Castle Howard, Yorkshire

Castle Howard is one of the most beautiful and famous stately homes in North Yorkshire, England, 15 miles (24 km) north of York. Castle Howard is a baroque masterpiece, more palace than house, conceived by Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, and executed by Sir John. The magnificent house sits in a landscape of rolling hills and unexpected monuments in the Howardian Hills, an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The house stands within extensive parkland and formal gardens, where peacocks roam. The setting is idyllic, but it is the house itself that draws the eye. Castle Howard is centered on a striking dome, with two wings enclosing a courtyard. To the north, the ground falls away to a large lake, to the south, formal gardens share space with more water features and several glorious follies.

The building of this extravagant showpiece home began in 1699 and not so surprising it took over 100 years to complete, spanning the lifetimes of three Earls. The 3rd Earl of Carlisle enlisted the help of his friend, dramatist John Vanbrugh. Vanbrugh, having never built anything before, recruited Nicholas Hawksmoor to assist him in the practical side of design and construction and between 1699 and 1702 the design evolved. Built from east to west, the house took shape in just under ten years. By 1725, when an engraving of the house appeared in Vitruvius Britannicus (The British Architect), most of the exterior structure was complete and its interiors opulently finished.
However, at the time of Vanbrugh’s death in 1726 the house was incomplete; it lacked a west wing as attention had turned to landscaping the gardens. It was still incomplete when the 3rd Earl died in 1738. Little could both men have guessed that, when the house came to be completed by Carlisle’s son-in-law Sir Thomas Robinson, Vanbrugh’s flamboyant baroque design would be brought back down to earth by the 4th Earl’s conservative Palladian wing. Robinson's grand plans called for the interior to be completed to a level of grandeur and convenience that would be unrivalled anywhere in the world, but his grand scheme fell afoul of the young 5th Earl's trustees, who refused to lavish more money on the project. When Robinson died in 1777 the interior was still unfinished, and thus it remained until 1811, when Charles Tatham completed the decoration.

A large part of the house was destroyed by a fire which broke out on 9 November 1940. The dome, the central hall, the dining room and the state rooms on the east side were entirely destroyed. Paintings depicting the Fall of Phaeton by Antonio Pellegrini were also damaged. In total, twenty pictures (including two Tintorettos and several valuable mirrors) were lost. The fire took the Malton and York Fire Brigades eight hours to bring under control.

Some of the devastated rooms have been restored over the following decades. In 1960–61 the dome was rebuilt and in the following couple of years, Pellegrini's Fall of Phaeton was recreated on the underside of the dome.
In 1982 the interior of the Library, shown here with the Garden Hall beyond, was designed and built to house the unique collection of 9000 books on art, architecture and topography, some of them acquired when the house was first built.

With 1,000 acres to explore, Castle Howard is a haven of peace and tranquility with extensive woodland walks, temples, lakes and fountains.

There is an arboretum called Ray Wood, and the Walled garden laid out in the early 18th century as a kitchen garden.

Ornamental water features are used to dramatic effect in the grounds and gardens at Castle Howard. It was the 3rd Earl who started work on creating the waterways which now dominate the landscape. The South Lake, below Temple Terrace, was fashioned in the early 1720s, while a decade later New River was widened from a natural stream. The Great Lake to the north of the house was built by the 5th Earl in the 1790s.

Statues, temples, monuments and follies dot the grounds and gardens of Castle Howard. The Mausoleum, Pyramid and New River Bridge draw the eye across the rolling Howardian Hills, while the Temple of the Four Winds provides breathtaking views across the impressive landscape.

The Howards have lived continuously in the house ever since it was built by Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, at the beginning of the 18th century – with only one brief interlude when it became a girls’ school during World War II.
Castle Howard's Interior
Lady Georgiana's Bedroom - The bedroom of Georgiana Cavendish, 6th Countess of Carlisle, from the 1830s until her death. The room is filled with 19th century portraits of the Howard family and their relations.
Lady Georgiana's Dressing Room - Known briefly as the Yellow Dressing Room in 1825 when it contained two French mahogany ladies' cabinets and a pair of mahogany Pembroke tables, this room was always used as Lady Carlisle's Dressing Room.
Castle Howard Dressing Room - During the 19th Century the room was used as Lord Carlisle's Dressing Room. The wallpaper, rose branch on gold ground, was bought from Maples in London in 1884 by the 9th Countess.
Castle Howard Bedroom - The earliest description of this room dates from c.1812 when it was known as Lady Morpeth's Dressing Room. By 1825 the room was briefly known as Lady Cawdor's Dressing Room before being used as Lord Carlisle, the sixth Earl's bedroom.
Antique Passage - Running the length of the house from east to west, the Antique Passage is lined with busts, statues, marble table tops and urns collected chiefly by the 4th Earl during his second visit to Italy in 1738-39.
The Great Hall - The Great Hall is the crowning masterpiece of Vanbrugh's design. From the outside the dome presents Castle Howard with a unique silhouette; on the inside the hall rises 70 feet into the air and is decorated with columns, carvings and painted frescos.
The High South - Recently restored and opened to the public following the fire of 1940, the view from the High South Balcony takes in the Great Hall beneath, the dome above and the masonry, ironwork and painted details of this vast space.
The Music Room - Originally known as the Blue Velvet Drawing Room and then briefly referred to as the Blue Dining Room, this room seems to have alternated between being a Drawing Room and a Billiard Room until becoming known as the Music Room in the early part of the 19th Century.
The Crimson Dining Room - Originally known as the State Bedchamber this room was decorated with yellow damask and dominated by a four poster bed. Later it doubled as a Billiard Room/Games Room and in 2002 it was renamed the Crimson Dining Room after the red silk damask that covers the walls.
The Turquoise Drawing Room - When the House was first built this room consisted of a small chamber used as Dressing Rooms with an adjacent closet; later in the century it was turned into a Drawing Room. In 2002 the room was refurbished and the walls covered in a turquoise damask which was specially designed and woven for the room.
The Long Gallery - Built by Sir Thomas Robinson in the 1750s the interior of the Long Gallery remained unfinished for half a century. Conceived of as a gallery in which to display paintings and sculpture it extends 160ft in length.
Untouched for over 140 years, the Howard family Chapel features painted frescos depicting designs by Charles Eamer Kempe and stained glass windows by Edward Burne Jones. These sit alongside gilded and fluted columns and under a high, coffered ceiling based on Holbein’s design for the Royal Chapel in St James’ Palace.
The Anglican chapel was decorated by Morris & Co., who were commissioned by Edward Howard, the younger brother of the 8th Earl of Carlisle. The elaborate design which incorporates Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts style influences as well as pre-Raphaelite, is so reminiscent of a Catholic place of worship, it featured as the Marchmain family chapel in both film and television adaptations of Brideshead Revisited.

Castle Howard's chapel has been transformed following the installation of new, environmentally friendly lighting, providing visitors with the opportunity to discover its ornate interior - which takes inspiration from the pre-Raphaelite style - in all its glory.
Each year for Christmas, Castle Howard is transformed when the house is hand decorated for the festive season. The cobbled stable courtyard will bustle with stalls selling a range of gifts, crafts and local produce, perfect for the festive season. Explore Castle Howard as night falls when the decorations, candle and firelight bring a magic to the elegant interiors. To add to the festive feel, there will be live music performed under the Christmas tree or by the roaring log fire every day. Beautifully decked out each Christmas a visit to Castle Howard is not to be missed.

Today, it remains home to the Howard family and visitors can discover dramatic interiors containing world-renowned collections, whilst friendly and knowledgeable guides share stories of the previous generations, the house and its history. Talk and tours take place on selected dates throughout the year, or can be booked privately for groups subject to availability. Children can explore with free illustrated trails, jump on the land train to the lakeside adventure playground (suitable for children of all ages, including adults), and in the summer take boat trips on the Great Lake (weather permitting). Visitors can also enjoy a seasonal menu at the Courtyard Café or pick up something to take away at the Coffee Shop.