Wightwick Manor

Wightwick Manor stands on a wooded rise above Wolverhampton, a Victorian brick house built in 1887 for Theodore Mander by the Liverpool architect Edward Ould. Next to it is the Old Manor, a late 16th- or early 17th-century timber-framed house that once belonged to the Wightwick family. The new house was designed in the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts styles, with interiors shaped by Oscar Wilde’s 1884 lecture on the ‘House Beautiful’. Its walls carry wallpapers and embroideries by William Morris, tiles by William De Morgan, and stained glass by Charles Kempe. The Pre-Raphaelite collection includes works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais and Elizabeth Siddal. Lady Rosalind and Sir Geoffrey Mander later added more Pre-Raphaelite paintings after giving the house to the National Trust in 1937. Visitors walk through rooms with Morris fabrics and De Morgan tiles, then step into the Old Manor’s De Morgan Gallery. The 17-acre grounds offer woodland walks and a tea room in the old stables. The malthouse gallery shows works on loan from the De Morgan Foundation, while the second-hand bookshop sits beside the gift shop.