Aston Hall — Attraction in Birmingham

what a great after noon out. The house has changed inside from a formal museum to a true Jacobian home. children sadly don't go free now and the adult tickets have gone up. The tour guides are no longer there. This is no place for the disabled as the floors are so highly polished and so no wheelchairs or pushchairs can be taken round. There are a lot of stairs large stair cases and you go up to the servants quarters in the roof.. The house has Jacobian furniture in there and some original paintings of the Holte family and some copies. They have a bedchamber that King Charles the first slept in the night before the Battle of edge hill. There is the Kings room with all the armoury in it. tapestries made by the family. Kings dressing room and best bedrooms saloon and many other rooms. The attic is the servants rooms with a bed in made of straw and small rooms leading off it for the male servants. There was a concert block that had a hole in it and a grating this is the toilet the servants used. There are rooms that aren't open yet. There's a stuffed tiger in the Johnson room and it contains the memoriblia of a visit from Queen Victoria. The kitchen pantry and servants hall is also laid out to show they lived below stairs and there is food laid out. The day we was there they were selling tickets for the children to join in the beauty and the beast trail. The children are given a small booklet where they have to find things design things and find out what things are made of etc... In the great hall we had to find squirrels. won't give it away but we found them. Was extremely lovely to go round and see history. In the banister on one floor there is a hole it is thought that this was done my a Canon ball in the English civil war. The house dates from around the 1800. Villa park over looks the hall the Holte and. The Holte family are buried in the church...

TLDR; An excellent building, lovely grounds and a super enthusiastic staff.

I've lived in Birmingham for two decades and have never visited this Birmingham museum. My friend convinced me to go and it was well worth it. The grounds are free to walk around, and there are some toilets in the old stables area which you can use without going in. The outer grounds have lovely old trees and are used for sports by local kids, while the walled gardens are more designed to walk gently around. Some areas are clearly in need of looking after, and the bars around the outside walk are not so inviting, but for a free to walk around location, it is pretty nice.

It costs ten quid each to go into the house, but I really appreciated the bite sized bits of history in each room. Not too much reading, but lots to look at.

It was quiet on the day we went (Saturday late in the month), and the staff gave access to some of the more haunted areas and told us stories about ghosts and life in the 1600s.

Finally, we got to play eith some replica weapons while a staff member told us about fighting during the civil war.

Obviously if you go and it is busy, you might not get it all, but for those who luck out, well worth it.

We arrived at 11am and left at around 1:30pm (relatively fit 40ish guys) so expect up to 2 hours actually...

Excellent place with very rich history. Please visit it if you like gardens, especially in summer when all flowers are in bloom.

Here are just a few details about this historic mansion:

Using a design by John Thorpe, construction commenced in April 1618 by Sir Thomas Holte, who finally moved into the hall in 1631. It was completed in April 1635. It is now Grade I listed. The house sits in a large park, part of which became Villa Park, the home ground of the Aston Villa football club.

The house was severely damaged after an attack by Parliamentary troops in 1643; some of the damage is still evident. There is a hole in the staircase where a cannonball went through a window and an open door, and into the banister. The house remained in the Holte family until 1817 when it was sold and leased by James Watt Jr., son of industrial pioneerJames Watt. The house was then purchased in 1858 by a private company (the Aston Hall and Park Company Ltd) for use as a public park and museum. After financial difficulties it was then bought by the Birmingham Corporation in 1864, becoming the first historic country house to pass into...