Following a friend’s wedding in the Cotswolds recently, we took the chance to visit the National Trust’s Snowshill Manor, near the lovely village of Broadway in Gloucestershire. The house, which belonged to the fine British eccentric and treasure seeker Charles P. Wade,  is a place with a lot of history and a wonderful story.

Snowshill Manor houses around 22,000 antiques from around the world

Charles Wade was born into a wealthy, West Indian plantation owning, Suffolk family in 1893. He enjoyed what he described as an idyllic, perfect childhood, exploring the family estates and perhaps cycling across the flat, evocative countryside of east Anglia.

Sadly, in 1900 Charles’s father was called upon to manage the plantation in the West Indies and he took the whole family with him, with one exception. Seven year old Charles was left in England to go to school and live with his granny Spencer.

Granny Spencer was the archetypal Victorian grandmother and Charles’s carefree days of harmless mischief and adventure were over. He was forced to behave himself all week, without friends, robbed of the happy family life he had enjoyed and remembered so fondly in later life. His only diversion became the occasional opportunity to play with an ornament from Granny’s cabinet of curiosities.

This cabinet, full of antiques and strange trinkets, became the one ray of light in the life of this lonely little boy, and in Charles it sparked an obsession that would last his entire life. All of his pocket money went on items of craftmanship and beauty found at flea markets, antique stalls and country houses. Over his life, Charles built up a collection  of more than 22,000 items of furniture, clothing, paintings, and many other pieces which reflected his interest in colour, design and good workmanship. His family motto was ‘Let nothing perish’, and he spent his inherited wealth doing just that.

Charles Wade renovated the house, gardens and estate at Snowshill Manor

In 1911 Charles,  inherited the family wealth and began to consider how he could store his growing collection. It wasn’t until several years later that he came across  a notice advertising the auction of Snowshill Manor, complete with surrounding estate and houses. The only problem was that when Charles saw the notice he was sitting amongst the trenches of the Great War battlefields and had no means of attending a Gloucestershire auction. All that he could do was hope that Snowshill stayed available and that he would survive the trenches and live to fulfil his dream.

So it was not until 1919 that Charles turned up in the Cotswolds to find the unsold, unloved, uninhabitable Snowshill still up for sale. He bought the whole lot and set about renovating it.

Pond, garden and vicarage at Snowshill Manor

Charles first restored the Manor House and laid out the gardens from 1920 to 1923. The Manor House was not for living in – it housed his staggering collection of antiques, while Charles lived in the small, dark cottage in the garden. Over the 1920s and 30s, Charles would be driven across the country to fairs, markets and country estates selling off the unfashionable family heirlooms. He collected pieces of every description and every nationality – so long as it displayed excellent design and craftmanship Charles would try to find a place for it. As the Snowshill website says, the manor is literally packed to the rafters with thousands of unusual objects – from tiny toys to splendid suits of Samurai armour.