Wightwick Manor

This superbly crafted manor house was built in 1887 for Samuel Theodore Mander, a partner in the local varnish and paint-making firm of Mander Brothers. His architect was Edward Ould. The elaborate timber-framed exterior, with deliberate asymmetrical grouping, features tall chimneystacks, oriel windows and ranks of carved quatrefoils. In 1893 Ould added an east wing with help from the Pre-Raphaelite glass-designer Charles Kempe, who produced some fine painted glass for the house as well as advising on its decoration. In the grandest room, the great parlour – actually a 2-storey living-hall in the Nesfield-Shaw tradition – Kempe had a hand in designing the polychromatic decoration of the roof and the plaster frieze that is inspired by the High Great Chamber at Hardwick Hall. Much of Wightwick’s remarkable Pre-Raphaelite collections were assembled by Mander’s son and daughter-in-law, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Mander, who carefully preserved the house after his death in 1900.

Wightwick Manor, West Midlands (Accredited Museum)

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Wightwick Manor houses an important collection of Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts pictures and furnishings, including textiles, embroidery, metalwork, silk and wool textiles by Morris and Co.; paintings and drawings by Rossetti, Holman-Hunt,Millais and Burne-Jones. There is a large collection of mostly late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century books including books from the Kelmscott Press. Wightwick has, over many decades, been treated as an open collection, with appropriate objects of all kinds being brought in.

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