Mottisfont Abbey

Mottisfont Abbey: south front

We had a most enjoyable walk around Mottisfont, while en route for Poole, but it came about as the result of a mistake. I had noticed an imposing Tudor-style house in red brick from the M27 on previous journeys to Poole and done a bit of google research which resulted in me wrongly identifying it as Mottisfont. I still don't know what I saw - and it now seems to have become concealed behind a screen of trees.

Anyway, Mottisfont Abbey is a National Trust property near Romsey in Hampshire. It has an interesting history. It was founded in 1201 as an Augustinian priory. After the dissolution of the monasteries it went to Lord Sandys, who lived mainly in the nave of the former abbey church. Not too much remains of the monastic buildings. What you see today as the south front is 18th century, and other changes were made in the 19th and 20th centuries.

From 1934 it was the home of Maud Russell. Maud and her husband Gilbert purchased Mottisfont as a country retreat in which to entertain their illustrious friends, including the Churchills, Ian Fleming (with whom she had an affair) and members of the Bloomsbury Group. Maud gave it to the National Trust in 1957.

You walk across the large lawn to enter the house. The main highlights inside are the salon decorated by Rex Whistler in 1938-39 with restrained Gothic designs and including some very clever trompe l'oeil - the room seems for all the world to have a shelf around it just below ceiling height.  You have to study the wall closely to confirm that it is flat all the way up. Throughout the house, there is a lovely selection of  mainly early 20th century paintings and drawings. They come from the collection of Derek Hill, a painter friend of Maud, and include many of his own works.

To complete the tour of the house you need to go outside to reach the cellarium, where you finally get a real sense of the monastic origins of the house.

Outside, in a corner of the south front is a mosaic of an angel by Boris Anrep, a Russian artist known for his monumental mosaics at the National Gallery, the Bank of England and Westminster Cathedral.

The face of the angel is said to be that of Maud Russell and, perhaps inevitably, there are suggestions that she and Boris were lovers.

The back of the house is plainer, but the avenue of trees is delightful.

We then walked around the full extent of the grounds, taking in the attractive stable block built around a courtyard (a "very precise job of 1837" according to Pevsner) - home of course of the tea room and shop. We then walked through the substantial walled garden, with a fine array of roses, and followed a grassy path around the perimeter of the grounds.

Towards the end of the path, you reach the river Test and see this entertaining Fisherman's Hut.

The river runs fast and clear and you follow it along a shady path back to the grass beside the house.

Conditions: sunny, warm.

Distance: about 3 miles in total.

Map: Explorer 131 (Romsey, Andover and Test Valley).

Rating: three and half stars. Not a really impressive building, but full of interest and with a very tranquil feel.

Cultivated flower of the day

Although roses were the major flowers on display in the walled garden, this beautiful iris really caught my eye.