Article Title: "The History of Wallington Hall"

Author: Sheila Convey

Society Membership Level: Field Investigation Team

Copyright: Sheila Convey

Year Published: 2009

Miscellaneous: Sources: Batchelor, J. Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. London: Chatto & Windus, 2006; Keith. E. Memories of Wallington. London: Purnell & Sons, 1939; National Trust. Wallington. Hampshire: BAS, 1989; Trevelyan.C. Wallington: It’s History and Treasures. London: Purnell & Sons, 1950; Trevelyan, L. A Very British Family: The Trevelyans and Their World. London: Chatto & Windus, 2006.

Wallington Hall is a Grade I listed country house situated along the Wansbeck valley some twelve miles to the west of Morpeth and approximately sixteen miles northwest of Newcastle upon Tyne. It lies a mile from the village of Cambo in Northumberland and was built in 1688 on the site of a medieval tower and bastle. It has an 18th century park and a wooded garden of 100 acres. The full extent of the land stretches to 13,000 acres. It became associated with three of the greatest British historians, G. M.Trevelyan, George Otto Trevelyan and George Macaulay. The National Trust house and collections manager at Wallington described it as "the jewel in the crown of Northumberland." Centuries of Border wars meant that the building of grand country house in the county never reached the level it did in calmer, safer parts of England so that makes Wallington a rarity.

John Grey, who took the local name De Wallington, owned the castle at Wallington in 1326. His son Robert de Wallington had one daughter, Johanna, who was his sole heir. She married William de Strother. By 1352 it was in the hands of Alan de Strother, a powerful north-country landowner who was a friend of Chaucer at the court of Edward III. Alan de Strother became High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1356-57. Sir John de Fenwick came into it in the reign of Henry IV through his marriage to an heiress of the Strothers. The Fenwick family were a well-known clan found on both sides of the border between England and Scotland. They were involved in the border fighting during Tudor times. When the peace of the borders looked to be in sight in the 16th century they added a house to the castle. The Border Survey in Henry VIII’s reign described Wallington as “a strong tower and stone house in good reparacions.”

Parts of the cellars under the eastern and southern fronts of the present house are all that remain of the castle. There are still several large doorways hinged for gates, vaulted ceilings and narrow windows. There is also a well, which was for the supply of water when the moss-troupers were around.

There is little to be seen of the 16th century Fenwick house apart from the panelling of a small attic, the oak banisters of a staircase and the lead water pipes down the walls. These are decorated with the heads of cherubs and several still have the Fenwick arms over them, with their crest of a phoenix, which was intended as a pun on their name.

Sir John Fenwick (1645-1697) succeeded his father to become 3rd Baronet in 1676. He was married to Mary (d. 1708), daughter of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle. Loyalty to the Stuart cause had cost the family its high standing and Sir John was no exception. He was a professional soldier who held the rank of major general in 1688 and was a Member of Parliament for Northumberland from 1677 to 1687. He was a Jacobite who had spent time in prison since 1689 under suspicion of treason. He was implicated in the assassination plot of 1696, the last attempt to restore James II to the throne. The plan was to shoot King William III as he went hunting in Richmond Park. It was his habit to leave Kensington Palace every Saturday morning in a coach accompanied by the court who then made their way back to London. He returned alone at dusk six hours later. They planned to attack when the coach, with the King in it left the ferry that was used to cross the Thames. It entered a narrow lane leading up from the river and this is where they planned to kill him.

The conspiracy came to light but it is unsure who betrayed them. Twenty people were arrested but William of Orange really wanted to get his hands on John Fenwick who he disliked immensely because of Fenwick’s consistent plotting.

A man called Peter Cook gave evidence that implicated Fenwick. He informed the Government of meetings that had taken place where details of a French invasion had been discussed and where Fenwick had been present. The Earl of Aylesbury, the Lords Montgomery, Russell and Brunell were also mentioned. They were all sent to The Tower. Fenwick protested his innocence vehemently but was convicted. He tried to delay proceedings and asked Parliament if he could speak to the King personally. They agreed but it proved of little use although he did manage to delay his execution until January 28 1697 when he was beheaded. He died proclaiming his loyalty to James. He was convicted of High Treason and had to forfeit his goods to the State. William of Orange was entitled to a share and chose Fenwick’s favourite horse, White Sorrel, which was his top racehorse. Sir John was said to be the first to produce a pure bred British racehorse and part of the grounds at Wallington was laid out to exercise his thoroughbreds. Apparently King William took great delight in owning the horse because of the great animosity between the two men.  By a strange twist of fate the King was riding Sorrel through Hampton Court in February 1702 when the horse stumbled on a molehill. William was thrown off and broke his collarbone. Pleurisy and pneumonia set in and he died. Many saw this as wild justice and the Jacobites’ secret toast was to “the little gentleman in black velvet.”

Financial problems caused by spendthrift ways had forced Sir John Fenwick to sell most of the family estates, including Wallington Hall to Sir William Blackett in 1684. He was paid £4,000, which was little more than a year’s rental and an annuity of £2,000 per year for himself or his wife if she survived him. He had no children to pass the estates on to as his three sons and one daughter had all died young.

Sir William Blackett demolished the home of the Fenwick family and in 1688 began to build the house, which stands, its exterior almost unchanged today, using the blocks of stone from the old castle. Sir Charles Trevelyan said: “Sir William was not a man to dawdle or hesitate. He at once pulled down the castle at Wallington and the Tudor dwelling attached to it, and erected on the site a residence on the model of a great French chateau, standing almost exactly square to the points of the compass, with four equal faces, each of them 120 feet in length.”

Sir William Blackett’s father was a merchant in Newcastle and had made a fortune from coal and lead mining as well as property. When he died in 1680 he left one fortune to his eldest son Edward, who built the Newby estate near Ripon. William was his third son and he inherited another fortune, which allowed him to buy and re-build Wallington. He was mayor of Newcastle in 1683, made a baronet in 1684 and elected MP in 1685. He was High Sheriff in 1689 and MP again in 1698. His heavy involvement in Newcastle life probably explains why the family kept a house there in Anderson Place (between Grey Street and Pilgrim Street). It was said to be the grandest house in Newcastle and the family lived in it until 1783. It was where Charles I lived for a year when he was in the custody of the Scots. By comparison Wallington was at first considered a modest house, more of a shooting lodge than a mansion as its interior was unpretentious and is interior probably uncomfortable. According to Sir Charles Trevelyan, “The Blackett house was of severe simplicity, inside and out. The one decorative feature breaking its exterior lines was the front door on the north side. This simple, strong entrance is now the back door. Within, the rooms as originally planned were undecorated, and opened inconveniently one into another.”

After Sir William’s death in 1705 the house passed to his son, also William, (1690-1728) when he was aged sixteen. He was Mayor of Newcastle from 1710 until his early death. He was a closet Jacobite but when the 1715 rising came about he went to ground and lost many friendships and the respect of fellow conspirators. Sir Charles Trevelyan described him as ‘a politician of a poor stamp’. He said: “ He talked Jacobite gossip; he drank Jacobite toasts-a great many more than were good for him; but in 1715, when Lord Derwentwater and other country gentlemen of Northumberland who were faithful to the Stuarts set their lives and their estates to hazard and assembled in arms to the high watershed which overlooks Wallington from the west, Sir William Blackett slunk away to his brother-in-law in Yorkshire and left his braver comrades and neighbours in the lurch.” He was renowned for revelry. It is said that his guests were barely conscious during the weeklong parties he held at Wallington. Men were employed to drag or carry those that fell over or rolled under tables in their drunkenness to the attics where straw was laid out. In the morning they would be turned out to the horse trough in the inner courtyard and given a dip in the cold water and a change of clothes before resuming the festivities. Sir William married Barbara Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey in 1723. The wedding went down in history because of the rowdy scenes at Hexham. They lit bonfires on Shaftoe Crags and Shaftoe Vaughan, the owner of East Shaftoe Hall allegedly had the Devil’s Punchbowl enlarged and filled with wine to toast the newly weds. The marriage did not produce any children but Sir William had an illegitimate daughter called Elizabeth Ord (1711-1759).

Despite his dissolute ways his funeral in 1728 was said to be the largest in living memory with 1,086 people escorting him to St Nicholas’s Church. He left his estates at Allendale and Wallington to his nephew Sir Walter Calverley (1707-1777) on condition that he married William’s illegitimate daughter Elizabeth and assume the name Blackett. They were married in 1729 and he took the Blackett name in 1733. Sir Walter then began the task of improving Wallington. It was in a poor state and Walter Calverley Blackett took on debts of £77,000. The land was laid to waste and the estate workers said to be living in squalid conditions.

Sir Walter Calverley Blacket, a Member of Parliament for forty years and Mayor of Newcastle five times. He was known affectionately as ‘King o’ wor canny toon.’ He was regarded as a very generous man, an active philanthropist not only round the estate but also in Newcastle upon Tyne where he ran his lead and coal business. The Infirmary on Forth Banks would not have been started without his handsome contribution and he established a hospital for six poor unmarried women. It was he who gave the Tomlinson Library to St. Nicholas’s Church in 1736 as well as the Shambles to Hexham. He contributed to the cost of a bridge at Hexham, as well as employing James Paine to build one on his estate in 1760.  Before this travellers had to cross the Wansbeck at one of seven fords. This became more dangerous when the river was in flood especially at the lower fords near Morpeth.

He re-roofed the house and transformed the parkland as well as the interior of the house, replanned the farms, created a garden and rebuilt the village of Cambo.He also replaced the old paths with straight well made turnpike roads He was his own landscape gardener but commissioned “Capability” Brown to make a fishing lake at Rothley, four miles north of Wallington. He built the stable courtyard in 1737 and was responsible for the fine plasterwork executed by the Italian craftsmen he employed between 1740 and 1742. The estate at this time was a picture of mounting debts and falling assets and it was only the expectation of inheriting the Calverley estates that allowed him to carry on. These came to him in 1749 and a few years later he sold them in order to buy the Wallington estate from the Trustees.  He added the clock tower, (first designed for Sir Walter as a chapel) and coach houses in 1760 and this is when the four griffins’ heads, (placed on the front lawn in 1928), were brought from London as ballast in his coal ships together with the busts that stand in the walled garden. They were originally part of one of the old entrances to the city of London known as Bishopsgate.When the house was originally built it had no main staircase and there was only a narrow flight of steps to the next floor in each corner of the building. Sir Walter Blackett introduced the internal corridor on each floor and had a main staircase built. By the time of his death in 1777 after fifty years of work the estate was then regarded as one of the best managed, and finest homes in the north of England. The alterations were done for him by Daniel Garrett and executed in the Palladian style.

The only child of Sir Walter and Elizabeth (also Elizabeth) died at the age of 17 in 1752 so after Sir William’s death the estate passed to his nephew, Sir John Trevelyan of Nettlecombe (1734-1828) in Somerset. He was the son of Sir William’s sister Julia who had married into the Trevelyan family.

The Trevelyans were of Cornish origin. One of them was a courtier of Henry VI and another sailed with Drake. They made their way to Nettlecombe by marriage in the 16th century. They became country squires and fought for Charles I, lost property in Commonwealth times but came into a baronetcy during the Restoration.

Sir John struggled with keeping Wallington and Nettlecombe running. Apart from anything else they were at opposite ends of the country. He chose to live at Nettlecombe, which was very different to Wallington. Nettlecombe lay in a sheltered valley below the Quantocks and was late Elizabethan, whilst Wallington was of stark Georgian architecture set in the bracing Northumberland countryside with less pretty views.

Sir John was more than a country squire. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, was a keen ornithologist and was elected to Parliament. He was also a friend of the potter Josiah Wedgewood and is said to have had a good knowledge of natural history. He died in 1828 at the age of 94.

Sir John the younger (1761-1846) had similar interests to his father and was a founder member of the Royal Horticultural Society that had been set up by Josiah Wedgewood’s son, John Wedgewood. Sir John married a very wealthy woman in 1791. She was Maria Wilson (1771-1851), the sister-in-law of the assassinated Prime Minister Spencer Percival who was shot in the House of Commons Lobby in 1812. She brought not only a large dowry to the marriage but a fine collection of porcelain, which can be seen at Wallington. She was regarded as a very formidable woman for whom the idealistic and gentle John was no match. It was a stormy marriage but it produced fourteen children, most born at Wallington. Two died in infancy. Maria lived mainly at Wallington whilst Sir John lived mostly at Nettlecombe.

Their eldest son was Walter Calverley Trevelyan (1797-1879), described as ‘an intellectual of a dry professional order’. He owned Wallington from 1846 until his death and was the last of the direct line. He was a distinguished geologist with an interest in botany. He became an expert on farming methods, winning prizes for his cattle. He was also a strict teetotaller who emptied the contents of his father’s wine cellars into the lake. He married Pauline Jermyn (1816-1866), a clergyman’s daughter, in 1835. He had been introduced to her two years earlier at a Cambridge conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and they were brought together by a shared interest in geology and phrenology. She was 17 and Walter was 36. Walter was a member of the Geology and Geography Committee at the time. Pauline was a woman of high intellect. She had learnt Greek, French, Latin, German, and Italian and wrote poetry from an early age. Her interests lay in science, literature and the fine arts. She also wrote reviews in the Edinburgh Review and The Scotsman. Sir Walter Trevelyan was a respected scientist but as Sir Charles Trevelyan commented in his book ‘Wallington’, published in 1950: “Pauline, Lady Trevelyan, soon became the centre of society of science, poets and painters. Algernon Swinburne read his poems on the lawn. Millais painted. Augustus Hare saw ghosts. Ruskin talked and wrote. It was to that period that we owe the Central Hall. In Blackett days the house was surrounded by a courtyard, which we must imagine dark, dirty and unattractive. Ruskin suggested that it should be roofed in.  And in 1855 he present beautifully lit hall was created under Ruskin’s directions, who is said to have actually designed the balustrade on the first floor. William Bell Scott, a young pre-Raphelite artist, then an art teacher in Newcastle, was chosen to paint the historical pictures. When the hall was complete, Wallington, as we know it was complete.” John Dobson was the architect employed to create the hall.

Pauline organized for the inner courtyard to be adorned with murals. She wanted it to look like an Italian courtyard. The couple travelled a great deal in the first eleven years of their marriage and Pauline’s love of the Italians and their language had caused them to spend a great deal of time there, particularly in Rome and she felt a great affinity with the country. The chief artist was William Bell Scott who depicted the history of the region in a series of paintings. Ruskin and Pauline made their contribution by decorating several of the pilasters. Pauline commissioned Thomas Woolner, one of the original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as sculptor to provide a central figure for the hall. His work, ‘Civilization’, dominated by the mother-and-child piece known as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ or ‘The Trevelyan Group’ was installed at Wallington in 1866 shortly after Pauline’s death from advanced ovarian cancer.  There are also works by William Frith, Alexander Munro, Burne-Jones and others. The Wallington scheme influenced further works of a similar nature such as the twelve historical paintings for Manchester Town Hall and the decoration of the Scottish Portrait Gallery. Pauline’s influence was felt far and wide.

Although the Trevelyans were hospitable their way of life was very eccentric and Lady Trevelyan was not a homemaker. Augustus Hare stayed at Wallington twice, in 1861 and 1862, and his experience was probably not unusual. He arrived in time for lunch on his first visit, “which was as peculiar as everything else (Lady Trevelyan and her artists feeding solely on artichokes and cauliflowers). The endless suites of huge rooms only partly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. Lady Trevelyan never appears to attend to her house a bit, which is like the great desert with one or two little oases in it, where by good management you may possibly make yourself comfortable.”  Despite this he and many others were drawn to the couple and spent a lot of time with them.

The marriage of Sir Walter and Pauline did not produce any children so the estates of Wallington and Nettlecombe should have been left to the next heir of the baronetcy, Alfred Wilson Trevelyan but Sir Walter did not want to leave the two Trevelyan estates to one man. Some have claimed that this was because Alfred had converted to Catholicism. However Nettlecombe was entailed and so it had to go to him as did the furniture from Wallington and the baronetcy. Wallington and its portraits and china were left to Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan (1807-1886), Walter’s cousin. Alfred tried to challenge the will but was unsuccessful.

Sir Charles inherited Wallington late in life after a distinguished career in India. He also worked at the Treasury where he played a large part in the reform of the Civil Service before returning to India a second time. His first period in India was marked by his marriage in1834 to Hannah Macaulay (1810-1873), the sister of Lord Macaulay the historian who wrote his ‘History of England’ at the desk, which is now in Wallington Hall’s study. It was his second wife Eleanora Campbell, (1829-1919) who he married in 1875 that he brought to Wallington. She had the huge task of furnishing the whole place.

Towards the end of his life Sir Charles Edward built Cambo Church Tower and the schools at Cambo and Rothley. He made no profit from the estate as so much money was spent on improving it. He died in 1886 and was succeeded by his son, Sir George Otto Trevelyan (1838-1928), the eminent historian, who held office under Gladstone and was Chief Secretary in Ireland for two years. He inherited large debts. Lord Macaulay was close to his nephew Sir George and it is thanks to the combination of his royalties and those from Sir George’s ‘Life and Letters’ that he was able to pay off all the mortgages in 1889. It was at Wallington that Sir George wrote most of the ‘History of the American Revolution’.

He married Caroline Philips (1849-1928) in 1869. She inherited Welcombe Park in Stratford-upon-Avon and it was there that they spent the winters. They had three sons, Sir Charles Philips (1870-1958), Robert Calverley, the poet (1872-1951) and George Macaulay (1876-1962), the historian and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is said that theirs was a true and enduring love story. They were married for fifty-nine years and were hardly ever apart. George died just eight months after Caroline in 1928, shortly after his 90th birthday and was buried next to his father in Cambo churchyard.

Charles Philips Trevelyan, their eldest son became 3rd Baronet. He was a Member of Parliament for almost thirty years, first as a Liberal and then a socialist. He was president of the Board of Education twice – in 1924 and from 1929-1931. He married Mary Katharine Bell (1881-1966) in 1904. She was the granddaughter of the millionaire ironmaster from Durham, Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell. They had seven children but one died young. Charles was a dashing and handsome man who was ideologically left wing. He was very attractive to women and fathered a child at 72 with his secretary Edith Bulmer who was 39 when she gave birth to their son Martin in 1943. The boy was never acknowledged publicly as Charles’s son but the relationship lasted over twenty years until Edith died a few weeks before him.

Wallington was in need of urgent repairs when Charles inherited it. The roof over the main hall was in a very bad state and the grounds and tenant’s houses neglected. Charles was damning about his father’s abilities as a landlord and called him ‘only a rent receiver’. George Otto would have been the first to admit that he was not a countryman and running an estate was never his strong point. His powerful intellect was better suited to politics and historical writing. He was a shy but brilliant classical scholar more at ease as a pen pal to President Theodore Roosevelt who had read his books, than conversing with his own tenants.

Charles and his wife worked hard to make the necessary improvements and as a way of thanking their tenants they invited them to their silver wedding celebrations. Charles was a complicated man for whom wealth sat easily on one shoulder whilst socialism rested on the other. In a speech to the gathering he said:
“You are all aware that I am no friend of the system which by pure chance makes me rich and a thousand others poor for life…I want you to know that I regard myself not as the owner of Wallington and the people of Wallington, but as a trustee of property which under wiser and humaner laws could belong to the community…I want you to feel that to come and see Wallington is on your part not an intrusion but a right…We would like to think the pictures, the china, the books, the woods, the garden, are possessions for all the people around here to cherish or to use…
   We have often expressed the opinion in public that if the Nation were to give family allowances where there are children in the family and that would be one of the best methods towards a wider and juster distribution of wealth. We intend to give an allowance to every family on the estate of 2/6 a week for every child from birth till such time as it leaves school or college. The allowance will be paid every month by Lady Trevelyan to the mother of the family…” Charles was ahead of the Government who set up Family allowance 16 years later after the Second World War.

In 1936 Sir Charles announced that he was leaving Wallington to the National Trust. Part of the house and gardens had been open to the public at weekends every summer since 1929. In a broadcast talk about the bequest in March 1937 Sir Charles said:
“It became evident to my wife and myself that it would be a great public loss if Wallington could not continue to be open for recreation of the increasing numbers of people who now visit it. It would clearly be a public calamity if the house were to lose the collections which make it interesting, or were to be closed to the public who increasingly like to frequent it, or if the woods were cut down to meet taxation, or if the place were to become derelict if my successors could not afford to live in it. I made up my mind that I was not going to allow Wallington to become only a memory. I had to consider how to secure its future. There is as yet no department of State which has suitable machinery for controlling property with mansions in the interests of the public. I therefore determined to bequeath the house and the estate to the National Trust, who will own it after my death in the interests of the whole community.

The contents of the house will remain here in perpetuity and undispersed. The estate will remain as a unit and not be broken up, and the first use of the surplus values of the estate will be to maintain the place and the surrounding woods and gardens. The local life will go on undisturbed, and farmers will have a greater security than they could have under private ownership. Only one condition of moment is attached to the bequest of the house, namely that my wife and children shall be entitled to continue to reside at Wallington as tenants during their lives. The National Trust seems to feel as I do, that the interest of the place would be seriously diminished if it ceased to be inhabited by people who are attached to its traditions.

There is one great reason which makes it easier for me than most people in my position to take this step. To most owners it would be a terrible wrench to consider alienating their family houses and estates. To me, it is natural and reasonable that a place such as this should come into public ownership, so that the right to use and enjoy it may be for ever secured to the community. As a Socialist, I am not hampered by any sentiment of ownership. I am prompted to act as I am doing by satisfaction at knowing that the place I love will be held in perpetuity for the people of my country.”

Sir Charles and his wife Lady Mary opened the doors of Wallington to evacuees during the war. As he had been head of the Board of Education in the Labour government he considered it appropriate to take a school and 115 girls arrived on August 31, 1939. They were pupils at Elswick Road School. They slept in camp beds in what is now the restaurant building and in the attics. Other rooms in the house, as well as the estate office were used as classrooms. Some spent two years there and by all accounts were well looked after. Lady Mary was very supportive. She taught them how to swim, took them on nature walks, taught them folk songs and played the piano for them.
In 1941 the house and estate of Wallington bec

me the property of the National Trust.

Charles was hardly affected but his children bore the brunt. The man who lost the most was Charles’ heir, his eldest son George Lowthian Trevelyan (1906-1996), 4th Bt. of Nettlecombe and Wallington - the Nettlecombe title having reverted to the Wallington line. He was devastated by the decision. Sir George had spent some time at Gordonstoun School teaching and whilst he was there he began to think about the possibilities of using some of the English country houses as centres of adult education. He planned to use Wallington for this purpose when he inherited it. But the idea came to nought. George’s friend Rhoda Cowen says, ‘It happened that George was staying with us at our London house in Philimore Gardens when he opened ‘The Times’ at breakfast and saw that Wallington had been given away. It was quite dramatic! It was the first time anybody had given away such a place. George was dreadfully shocked; he stood quite still, went white, and was silent. Then he said the oddest thing, I shall always remember it: “My hairbrushes don’t even belong to me anymore!”

Charles made life difficult for the National Trust by his stipulation that his family would be entitled to live at Wallington as tenants. Many thought that he was having his cake and eating it by giving the house away but continuing to live there in the manner that he had always done. There was great consternation during the Second World War when he had a crown painted on one pillar of the entrance gate and a hammer and sickle (the symbol of Soviet Russia) on the other, demonstrating his loyalty to the sovereign and left wing politics. The Trust deplored it but could do nothing. Charles died at Wallington in January 1958, aged 87. The Trust then assumed control of the estate. Wallington, including the village of Cambo, is the largest country estate protected by the trust.

The family’s right to live there continues with Patricia Jennings who is Charles’ daughter, born in 1915 and living in her own quarters in the house. She is well known for her involvement with the Northumbrian Piper’s Society and is an expert player of the Northumbrian Small Pipes. Her mother, Lady Mary was a keen supporter of the society and became its president in 1947. Patricia served on the committee and also as vice-chairman.

Wallington continues to be a favourite place for visitors. In  2004 165,654 people went there and this was a record for the National Trust. The house had been closed for refurbishment for 18 months but the gardens still attracted 120,000. It opened to the public in April 2004 after a £1.7m facelift. All the money came from National Trust funds, as the income from visitors does not even cover day-to-day care. The refurbishment included returning the Victorian colour schemes, which had been sourced by taking paint scrapings and the weaving of new carpets using the 19th century originals as patterns. The paintings by William Bell Scott were cleaned and restored and the famous collections of 17 dolls’ houses were put back in place. The roof was repaired and the 18th century library ceiling with its elaborate plasterwork, which was in danger of collapse, was supported using metal dowels that pin the ceiling to metal braces. A lift was also installed. Prior to the opening there was a ceremony on March 29th to mark the completion of the work and members of the Trevelyan family were present. The date also coincided with the 75th anniversary of when Sir Charles first opened his home to the public. Figures for 1934 show that 700 people visited the property. Now the annual figure is around 130,000.

In June 2008 Lloyd Langley, the house and collections manager at Wallington arranged a reunion tea party for the evacuees taken in by Patricia’s parents. He set up an exhibition of material relating to their stay at the house and was given access to the war diary kept by Lady Mary together with her photograph album which are both owned by the trustees of the Trevelyan family.

Visitors come and go but some say there is more than one resident at Wallington. The upper floors are supposed to be haunted by a man with heavy, laboured breathing who is claimed to be John Fenwick, the executed Jacobite. There is also the sound of a bird beating its wings against the windows.