The bathroom covered in aluminium leaf

Upton House might look like a standard yellow ironstone mansion from the outside, but the interior is a bit of a shapeshifter. In the late 1920s, the owner's architect tried to keep the outside looking old-fashioned while introducing some Art Deco elements inside. The result is a bathroom for Lady Bearsted where the walls are covered in aluminium leaf. It is quite a lot of shiny metal for a place meant for washing, and art critic Osbert Lancaster described the style of the house's interiors as Curzon Street Baroque.

The house is presented more as an art gallery than as a private home. The 2nd Viscount Bearsted, who inherited a fortune from his father, the founder of Shell Transport & Trading, filled the rooms with a collection that includes works by El Greco and Dutch Masters. He bought a single El Greco for £5,000 in July 1938. If you walk through the rooms, you are seeing a curated collection of treasures rather than the lived-in clutter of a family house.

Then there is the garden. It is an extensive terraced garden that was largely transformed in the 1920s and 1930s by Kitty Lloyd-Jones. She took a bit of marshland and turned it into a Bog Garden centred on a natural spring. It is hidden away from the house, tucked into a small valley with a lake and a series of herbaceous borders. It is a significant corner of the estate featuring the National Collection of Aster.

You can see it all today as a National Trust property. The house and gardens are Grade II* listed and preserved as a significant collection of art and history. Just be prepared for some steep steps and a lot of shiny aluminium.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons