Bright Days & Dark Knights

With its limestone turrets and traceried windows glittering in the sun, Wollaton Hall looks like an ornate jewellery box perched incongruously on a hill. And like all precious jewellery boxes, treasures lie within its hidden compartments. Indeed, this Nottingham country house was so opulent, that a visiting Queen Adelaide, wife of King William IV, later said it should have a glass case to protect it from the elements.

Wollaton Hall is one of Britain’s finest grade I-listed Elizabethan buildings. It was built between 1580 and 1588 for landowner and industrialist Sir Francis Willoughby, who wanted a sumptuous residence in which he hoped the then monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, would stay. To show off his wealth and prestige, he engaged architect and surveyor Robert Smythson, who had already completed Longleat in Wiltshire and went on to create Derbyshire’s Hardwick Hall.

The result was one