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)

This collection has 8,390 items online

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.

View full collection