Montacute House Somerset
Montacute House in Somerset is one of the most beautiful and most completely preserved Elizabethan country houses in England, built for Edward Phelips around 1600. The combination of the extraordinary Ham stone facade, the long gallery, the collection of Tudor and Jacobean portraits from the National Portrait Gallery and the formal garden creates one of the National Trust's most satisfying and most completely realised historic house experiences.
The facade, built from the warm golden Ham stone of Somerset, is the finest and most accomplished Elizabethan domestic architectural facade in England. Its symmetrical composition of gabled bays, mullioned windows, heraldic carvings and the extraordinary figures of the Nine Worthies above the east porch combines all elements of the mature Elizabethan decorative vocabulary in a single breathtaking composition.
The long gallery on the top floor, 52 metres long and the longest surviving Elizabethan long gallery in England, houses the National Portrait Gallery's Tudor and Jacobean portraits in a space whose architectural quality and historical period perfectly match the paintings displayed within it.