Corsham Court — Attraction in Corsham

I visited Corsham Court on Tuesday,25 July 2023. The coach drop off point was just in front of the archway into the grounds, next to St Bartholomew church, which is open for viewing and quiet reflection. The walk to the front door is approximately 200 yards ,which as I have reduced mobility, took me about 10 minutes. There are 4 steps up to the front door with no handrail or ramp. There is however, another entrance around the side of the building, through the door marked Corsham Bath University. Here I used the fairly newly installed Stannah wheel chair lift, operated by Simon, the house tour guide. If you are a wheelchair user, you then need to transfer to a push wheelchair, provided by Corsham Court, to protect the flooring. Photography is not permitted by order of the Lord Of The Manor. Postcards are available. Free lockers,with key, are available to store bags and rucksacks, you don't want to carry around with you.

The guided house tour took just over 1hour,at a leisurely pace. It was very informative about the paintings and furniture on show, including a very unusual post mortem portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. There is limited seating in each room. Due to remodeling of the original house, the rooms we were shown, opened into each other, without needing to back track into a central hall . The female toilets comprise 2 single compartments, which are not disability accessible. Guide books can be purchased from the "music room" but there is no gift shop area. Access to the gardens, is on the left, after exiting the house, but there was very limited seating, so not an area, I could utilise. Our tour was timed at 11.30 am , but we were free to join the next house tour at 2pm, at no extra cost, which was a nice touch. Many thanks to Simon and especially to house staff Jane, who went "above and beyond" to assist me with my...

Visited the house and garden during a holiday visit. The staff were pleasant and answered questions, but the overiding feeling after touring the rooms and viewing the paintings, furniture and artefacts was that it is all very 'dry' and dated. The family obviously has a long history and family portraits abound, but there's been no attempt to bring this history to life and relate it to the current day. Some annotation to relate these family histories, e.g. "Great great, uncle Charlie was a great soldier/scoundrel/sportsman or whatever would have been insightful. You learn more about people from tombstones. As for the arboretum, no doubt there are some interesting specimens, but the use of some identification labels would have been less frustrating than the map where trees have grown since the plan was created and was not easy to follow. Interesting but presentation could be so much...

The interior of the home is very lovely, but as an art exhibition it is barely passable because of the dim lighting. Really, no lighting at all. They seem to depend mostly on natural light coming through the windows and most of the paintings were very difficult to see. That part was so disappointing. Also, no photography allowed, so I have no examples of the crepuscular environment. With photography actually encouraged in so many wonderful national galleries all over Europe, I can't imagine the logic of no photography in a place like this. The staff were all super friendly and very knowledgeable, so that helped a little, but we paid a great deal to see art that was largely displayed in the shadows. The grounds outside actually need six stars IMHO. Fantastic, well-maintained, varied from wild to formal and massive. The gardens are actually worth...