A baroque mansion at the bottom of its own deer-grazed valley near Bath, built on the profits of a very effective civil servant
Open to visitorsa National Trust place — check opening times and admission before you go
William Blathwayt was the kind of official who made himself indispensable — Secretary of State to William III, and handy in Dutch when Dutch was the language that mattered at court — and he spent the proceeds building Dyrham between 1692 and 1704, on the site of his wife’s old Tudor family house. Two architects did it in two goes, which is why the fronts don’t quite match; the Dutch taste runs right through, in the Delftware and the paintings.
The setting is the real pleasure. The house sits low, cupped in a fold of the Cotswold scarp, so you come at it downhill through the ancient deer park, around 110 hectares of it, with fallow deer scattered across the slopes and long views west towards the Severn. It’s the sort of approach that was designed to make you stop, and still does.
The National Trust took it on in 1956 and has been quietly refurnishing it ever since. It’s a paid visit with set hours, and worth checking ahead because the house and park sometimes keep different times. The Cotswold Way passes within a few hundred metres if you’re stitching it into a longer walk, and Dodington House is another grand estate a short way north. Come on a bright autumn morning, when the deer are noisy and the light comes in low across the grass.
