The Dutch house
Delftware, tulip vases from the 1680s, Dutch paintings and furniture still where early-18th-century inventories placed it.
Rwendland — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0
From the car park you see nothing but grass falling away in front of you, and then the house appears at the bottom of the valley as if someone had put it there to hide it from the road. That is the shot the director of The Remains of the Day (1993) chose for Darlington Hall, and it is what you are really paying for: a late-17th-century baroque mansion tucked into a fold of the Cotswold escarpment, wrapped in 270 acres of ancient deer park. The view comes first here; the house is the second course. William Blathwayt built it between 1692 and 1704. He was Secretary at War to William III and had spent years in the Netherlands, so the house is Dutch in temper rather than English: blue-and-white Delftware, tulip vases from the 1680s, paintings by Dutch masters such as Hondecoeter and van Hoogstraten, and staircases of walnut and cedar shipped from Virginia, where Blathwayt held colonial office. The remarkable thing is that much of the furniture still stands where early-18th-century inventories recorded it, which is rare even for a National Trust house. Samuel Hauduroy designed the west front in 1692; William Talman, who worked at Hampton Court, added the east front in 1704. Do not expect a two-hour tour: the ground floor and exhibition take about an hour, the first floor means a staircase, and there is a photo album for anyone who cannot manage it. For Gulf families over the summer, the parkland is the better half. The fallow deer are back since 2024 after several years' absence following a bovine TB cull, there is a play area, a café and picnic tables at Old Lodge near the car park, and the level stretches take a pushchair, though the drop down to the house is genuinely steep. Two eight-seat shuttle buses run all day between the car park and the house, a lifesaver with toddlers or grandparents. From the top of the park the view runs across the Severn to Wales on a clear day. Practicalities: it sits 13 km north of Bath just off the A46, around 20 minutes by car; no bus runs to the gate, so this is a driving day out. Adults pay £23, children £11.50, a family ticket £57.50, plus £4 parking for non-members, and no advance booking is needed. Park and garden open 10:00-17:00, but the house only 11:30-16:00; from late October to mid-February last entry is 15:00 with the site shutting at 16:00, and the parkland café runs weekends only outside school holidays from November to February. With one day in Bath, skip it. With a car and two days or more, it is the loveliest half-day in the countryside around the city.
Delftware, tulip vases from the 1680s, Dutch paintings and furniture still where early-18th-century inventories placed it.
The house seen from the park played Darlington Hall in the 1993 Anthony Hopkins film; the interiors were shot at other houses.
270 acres of sloping pasture with the fallow deer herd, a view reaching Wales, and a play area and café at Old Lodge.
Dyrham, near Bath, South Gloucestershire SN14 8HY
With one day in Bath, no; the city alone fills it. With a car and two days or more it is an excellent half-day for children: space to run, deer, a play area and café near the car park, and a shuttle that spares you the steep drop to the house. The house itself will hold small children for half an hour at most, so treat it as a short stop.
Realistically no. No bus runs to the gate, and the drive from the car park down to the house is long enough as it is. Without a car, a taxi from Bath Spa station takes about 15-20 minutes and a return trip can cost as much as the whole family's tickets, so Prior Park inside Bath may be the better choice.