Attingham Park in Shropshire has one of the National Trust's most elegant staircase's. Currently its featured in a double page spread in the National Trust Magazine, take a look and hear about it.
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00:00 I'm Deru Thomas, I'm the Collections and House Manager at Attingham Park in Shrewsbury.
00:06 And a fantastic staircase we were on, as featured in the latest edition, let's just have a look at that spread in the magazine there Deru.
00:14 The latest edition of the Trust membership magazine.
00:18 Just reminding people really, when they look around, to really look around as we can see if we glance up, that's the beautiful view we've got at the top there.
00:30 What's so special about the staircase then Deru?
00:34 I think the most significant thing about it, the thing that's most special and unusual is that it's built on the shape of a drum.
00:42 It's not a straight staircase or an angled staircase like most staircases you see in this kind of property.
00:50 It's built around a circle with a central first sweeping part and then dividing into two, going to the two different wings of the house.
00:59 Some people were even commenting when they've had the Christmas tree displayed here that it was one of the nicest things they'd seen in the Trust, wasn't it?
01:07 As an Instagram ready picture, it's got to be up there, it was gorgeous, wasn't it?
01:13 Particular favourite spot in the house for yourself or where does this rank?
01:18 I think this is pretty high, this is probably in the top, definitely in the top ten, probably in the top three.
01:23 It's designed by John Nash who also designed theatrical buildings like Brighton Pavilion.
01:28 And it's real sense of theatre in here, it's this vibrant colour and with gilding and the best marker tree and woodwork.
01:37 So it's all sort of brought together in a really theatrical way.
01:41 It's great, imagine sweeping down this to a big event or party.
01:45 So look up and what you'll see is a domed ceiling with a lantern glass, coloured, red coloured glass and then all these tiles.
01:55 I'm told there's over 10,000 tiles there, shaped like fish scales in reds and a salmon-y colour.
02:04 The gilded trimming all around it is just extraordinary.
02:09 I think one of the more unique ones in the Trust's collection in terms of how staircases go.
02:17 Absolutely, I certainly don't know of another staircase like it.
02:20 It's interesting actually why it was decided to be built on this shape.
02:24 The old house that preceded Attingham Hall was Turnhall and this was just behind where we are now.
02:31 So Nash had to squeeze in a staircase, add it on to the newly built picture gallery and that's why it ended up being built in this shape.
02:41 Wow, so possibly he was forced to make decisions and by a happy accident it ended up as gorgeous as it was.
02:47 Absolutely.