Snowshill

Snowshill is a small hamlet near Broadway in the northern Cotswolds, perched on a hillside with wide views across the vale towards the Malvern Hills. It is primarily known for Snowshill Manor, a National Trust property that houses one of the most extraordinary private collections in the country — the life's work of Charles Paget Wade, who spent forty years filling every room of the manor with antiques, craftwork, musical instruments, clocks, toys, lacquerwork and curiosities from across the world.

Wade, an architect who inherited a fortune from his family's West Indies estates, bought the dilapidated manor in 1919 and devoted his life to its restoration and to the assembly of his collection. So crowded did the house become with his acquisitions that Wade himself chose to live not in the manor but in a small cottage in the garden — the house was entirely given over to his collection. The result is a place quite unlike any other, where every surface is covered and the effect is simultaneously overwhelming and compelling.

The village itself is a quiet cluster of Cotswold stone farms and cottages grouped around a small green, with the church of St Barnabas standing nearby. The surrounding countryside is excellent walking territory, with footpaths running across the high wolds towards Chipping Campden and south towards Stanton and Stanway. The approach road from Broadway, climbing steeply through orchards, offers some of the finest views in the northern Cotswolds.