As we’re on holiday at my Uncle’s house in Bristol at the moment, we’ve renewed our National Trust membership and spent yesterday on a day trip across to Wales to see some places that Alan has never seen before.

A random flip through the National Trust handbook got us Tredegar House, a lovely restoration house which was only brought into Trust ownership in 2013. They’ve got a 50 year lease on it so they are at the start of their journey to restore the house to its former glory, but it was really lovely. The woman who gave us our tour was very knowledgeable and she was happy to talk to us after the tour to answer our questions.

The house itself has had an interesting history, even being used as a Catholic girls school. There was one room with a magnificent mural on the ceiling, which was apparently almost destroyed when an air display by the Vulcan flew a little low and shook the house so much it almost cracked the plaster.

After we’d been to the house, we asked at the information centre if they had any other properties in the area, and they recommended Dyffryn Gardens, about half an hour away. They warned us that the house wasn’t as grand as Tredegar, but the gardens were lovely. And while they may have been correct about the lovely gardens, the house was still as spectacular, just in a very different style.

The only downer on the day was the fact that the weather was quite grey and miserable, but we mostly managed to avoid getting wet. We did over 7000 steps during the day though, so we all slept well last night after all the fresh air!