Visit Erddig Country House in Wrexham, North Wales

The National Trust property Erddig in Wrexham is an atmospheric house and estate. It is a completely furnished 18th-century large country house which offers a unique insight into servants' life in the 18th and 19th centuries. Erddig has one of the last surviving 18th-century gardens with a large walled garden and Victorian parterre, and extensive designed parkland which offers 13 miles of footpaths. A quaint and unusual feature of Erddig is the gallery of portraits of servants. It was a custom started in 1700 and each servant was portrayed carrying the emblem of his trade. The Yorkes actually had more portraits painted of their staff than of their own family, and also wrote lengthy inscriptions for them in verse, which led to them being regarded by their contempories as whimsical to say the least. At the time it was the norm for a country house owner to have expensive portraits painted of his horses or prize winning bulls – they were, after all, the product of careful breeding like their owners - to extend the treatment to generations of servants led to the Yorkes being considered an extremely eccentric lot. The Yorkes also shared an interest in antiquity and were archivists, hoarding everything - no matter how trivial, and there are records giving the more mundane details of what service at Erddig involved. The property, built in the 1680s is the UK's most favourite stately home after Chatsworth House. Jane Redfern Jones www.wrexhamtoday.com

Click to view