Snowshill Manor

5 August 2005

Helen visited early in the month. We spent one afternoon at Snowshill Manor
Snowshill is an old house near Broadway, Worcestershire, notable mainly for the vast collection of artefacts and memorabilia assembled by Charles Paget Wade, an English eccentric who had trained as an architect and inherited a fortune from his family’s sugar estates He bought the run-down property early in the last century, and spent over thirty years restoring the house and gardens, and filling it with a remarkable collection from all parts of the world
	The gardens are an attractive setting for the house, retaining an air of informality
The collection is housed in a succession of dark and claustrophobic rooms visited in a set order. Fascinating but oppressive Wade named the rooms and chose the themes and the contents himself. The result is slightly disturbing – it is collecting for collecting’s sake, the work of an obsessive
Some of the themes for the rooms are samurai warriors, musical instruments, furniture (see the study, right), leatherware, clocks, bicycles (see far right), weaving, Chinese cabinets and model ships
The tour ends with a view of Wade’s own living accommodation in a separate adjoining cottage (see his bedroom, right), including his kitchen and bathroom facilities
We conclude the visit with a short photo-call in the garden followed by a visit to the coffee and gift shops
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