December - Christmas at Barrington Court

A hundred years ago, the households of England’s grand country estates would have been busy with Christmas celebrations and looking forward to the New Year.

Today, many of these estates are now hotels, health spas or, as in the case of Barrington Court, near Ilminster in Somerset, run by charities such as the National Trust.

Such properties survive on a mixture of visitors, volunteers and a dedicated team of staff, and the week before Christmas we paid a visit to Barrington to find out how they were making the most of the festive season…