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Tintinhull House in Somerset is owned by the National Trust with gardens developed by the world-famous gardener, Penelope Hobhouse.  My family lived here between 1995 and 2004 but were not in charge of the gardens.  I have included a potted history of the house below.  The gardens are open to the public during the Summer months.  Details of opening hours can be found on the National Trust site here. 

The Nappers of Tintinhull

The Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1500s meant rich pickings for those with influence at Court.  One such was Henry VIII’s Secretary of State, Sir William Petre, who acquired the manors of Montacute and nearby Tintinhull.  In 1546 he assigned the tenancy of Tintinhull parsonage (now called the Court) to an old Oxford friend, Edward Napper, so beginning that family’s 250-year assocation with the village.  As Tintinhull’s glove-making industry prospered, so did the Nappers, who built new houses in the village for their children. 

The earliest surviving part of the house is the east front, through which you enter today.  It was built by 1630, when that date and the initial ‘N’ for Napper were carved into the gable end.  Not surprisingly, the Nappers chose Ham Hill stone, from which Montacute and the rest of Tintinhull were also built.

In 1722 Andrew Napper extended the house to the west by adding a new five-bay entrance front.  He topped it with a classically correct pediment and hipped roof of stone slates, but decided to have stone window mullions rather than the more fashionable and practical wooden sash-windows.  Because of its perfectly judged proportions, the west front looks bigger than it actually is, and has inspired many imitations, including a house built in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1918, which was christened Somerset House in its honour.  To provide a suitably impressive approach to his new front, Napper added the fore-court walls and eagles at the same time.

Later History

By 1746 the Napper family was shrinking in numbers and wealth, and the house was being let out to the Pitt family.  Ruined by a life of extravagance and gambling, John Napper died deep in debt in 1791, forcing his widow to sell Tintinhull House.  It passed through several hands until 1835, when it was bought by Jeremiah Penny, a local farmer whose family lived here for the rest of the 19^th century.

Arthur Cobbett, who bought Tintinhull in 1898, added the single-storey extension to the east front but seems to have used the house little, finally emigrating to South Africa and selling to his tenant, Dr. S.J.M. Price.  The writer Llewelyn Powys, who lived at Montacute, remembered Price as ‘small and frail in appearance, but possessed of a Spartan spirit’ with a ‘wan sensitive smile’.  Price was a distinguished botanist, who let valerian rule and other native herbs grow freely around the garden.  He also put down the patterned flagstones in Eagle Court and the Middle Garden, and may have sought advice from the garden designer, Harold Peto, who lived nearby at Iford Manor and whose sister was a friend.

Creating the Garden

Phyllis Reiss and her husband, Capt. F.E. Reiss, bought Tintinhull in 1933.  She had served her gardening apprenticeship at Dowdeswell Manor near Cheltenham, and as she cheerfully admitted ‘made her mistakes there’.  Now she would have nothing in her second garden that did not fit into the planting schemes she had devised.  The famous garden at Hidcote with its subtle mixture of garden ‘rooms’ and complex interlinked vistas was an important influence on Tintinhull.

  Mrs Reiss extended the garden creating ‘Cedar Court’ from a rough paddock and the Pool Garden from a former tennis court.  But above all she wanted her garden to be a peaceful place, in which people could sit and relax.  She called herself a ‘groupist’ as opposed to a ‘plantist’ in that she like to plant things together.  “I can’t bear any place to be void of flower and colour over a long period”.

Mrs Reiss gave the house and garden to the National Trust in 1954 continuing to live there until her death in 1961.  Between 1980 and 1993 Tintinhull was lucky enough to have leading garden designer and writer Penelope Hobhouse as its tenant.  She introduced many new ideas but kept up the tradition of keeping the garden well planted.  She is now at Bettiscombe in Dorset, which is open to the public.  But many of her books have illustrations from her time at Tintinhull.

Recent Times



I lived at Tintinhull between 1995 and 2004 with my husband Ed and three sons, Connor, Rollo and Monty.  We were long-term tenants of the National Trust but since we left, the house has available for holiday lets.  If you want to see the garden it is open between Easter and the end of October - and has an excellent tea-room. 

TODAY