Saltram House National Trust

When I first moved to Plymouth, one of the things that excited me about the area was the abundance of National Trust properties. I visited Cotehele last autumn with my family, but there's so many more within an hour's drive that I want to go to!

Luckily I have friends that also love big old houses, so after talking about it for months, Meg, Chloe and I finally went to Saltram. The house is a Georgian mansion, and it looks like a doll's house I dreamed of having when I was little.

 Instead of a boring old paper entry ticket, we were given this key. I loved this little touch, which made us feel a bit more privileged to be wandering round this house.

 Inside were lots of fancy rooms, as you'd expect. I won't lie, I'm pretty annoyed that four-poster beds aren't in fashion any more. Can you imagine trying to build that from an IKEA flat pack!?

We also got to muck around with dressing up things and masks - I think these were aimed at kids as they were all in tiny sizes but the masks fit fine! And they even provided a selfie stick so we could capture the moment.

After stopping for afternoon tea (and bloody lush cake) we sunned ourselves on the lawn and had a bit of a photoshoot, just because we could and Meg had her DSLR with her. 

Once we decided we'd taken enough photos, we went for a stroll around the gardens. Saltram is set in an estate that is made up of 4,000 acres of parkland, meaning there is much more exploring to be done! We stuck to the gardens, although we weren't short of exploring options. There were paths going off in all directions, we found the folly, complete with eerie underground cellar, and we finished up at this pond which was a complete sun trap.

I had the best day here, its a great place to go with friends, or with your family, or even for a romantic stroll around the parkland. I'll be visiting again soon to see what its like in the Autumn.

All photographs taken by myself, Megan Jones or Chloe Butt. All rights reserved.