It seems a while since I shared one of our family days out here. Looking through my photos shows that we’ve had some great days out and I don’t always get round to writing about them. During the half term holidays we were able to explore beautiful Montacute House in Somerset with the kids (and dog).

Exploring Montacute House with kids

We are lucky to have life time membership of the National Trust and it means we have some lovely days out exploring historic places around the UK. Montacute House is a stunning example of Elizabethan Renaissance architecture and design, with towering walls of glass, glowing ham stone and surrounding garden. We were fortunate to visit on a warm and sunny day, when the ham stone really did glow in the sunshine.

Unfortunately you can’t take dogs into the house (the only National Trust property which is dog friends seems to be Newton House at Dinefwr). This meant we had to split up, with Little Sis and I exploring inside Montacute House. As you would expect the building is huge with huge staircases linking the floors. We enjoyed being inside on such a hot day and explored the rooms, marvelling in the beautiful paintings and furniture.

I enjoyed the Goodhart collection of historic samplers from the 17th century. Some of them were tiny and it made me want to up my embroidery game!

Little Sis loved the Long Gallery which extends the full length of the house, measuring 52.4 metre (172 feet) from end to end. It’s the longest surviving Elizabethan gallery in the country.

The beautiful oriel window gives stunning views over the gardens.

The house was lovely and cool but soon it was time to step back outside and explore the gardens. The formal gardens were equally stunning, with one of the few remaining Elizabethan compartmentalised gardens.

There was an antique greenhouse, a pond full of fish, and avenues of trees in every direction.

We also discovered an impressive stable block (with a bookshop!) as well as the service courtyard which now houses a cafe and shop – well needed after exploring the house and estate.

We had a lovely day exploring Montacute House and there was something for everyone to enjoy. The kids were happy with so much space to explore and the dog was happy, especially as the cafe stocked his favourite pup ice cream. We were so happy to collect another stamp in our National Trust passport with the stunning Elizabethan Montacute House.